Maybe a similar sense of connection will happen with the housing crisis, but I don't think labor is the same as it was. People don't think of themselves as workers in a class; we have been divided more and think of ourselves as subgroups like entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc., which I think changes how you feel about solidarity.

To build solid and sustained mass movements, you have to struggle together. [0]

[0]: Theory of class struggle

The issue of housing affordability is also, primarily, an issue of housing policy, rather than labor policy.

The evicted people aren't going to be able to tell a clear story about who they are, why they are fighting non-labor (which I guess is business and employers), and why a labor uprising is the answer to a housing policy and pandemic response failures.

I don't expect a clear answer, because recently, popular uprisings have been very unimpressive in terms of intellectual rigor. I moved to Portland expecting to join up with more radical groups, but I quickly learned that no one is really serious (hence why despite having overwhelming resources compared to the police force, they haven't succeeded in making change).

In my experience, an unserious labor movement is one of the more convincing arguments for a neoliberal approach. Add to that public sector unions tarnishing the brand of organized labor in general (see police unions, teacher's unions) and I just don't see it.

I live in a red state with right to work (for less) laws and a strong anti-union sentiment. The work ethic here is: if you have to cut down every last tree, desertify every last grassland, poison every last waterway, then you do it to feed your family. Now we're living under the consequences of that freedom, with rampant wildfires and the loss of most timber/grazing/mining jobs. $15 per hour is mocked like some kind of impossible dream because everyone works at the call center or does food service now.

I'm concerned that many of the people reading this live in big cities with liberal politics so they haven't seen the consequences of unregulated wild west crony capitalism. I grew up with it, so I know how it leads to wealth inequality and inequality in general. It's basically the aristocratic/imperialist model like England had, where one rich guy hires everyone else and everybody is happy because the rich guy keeps them safe and the poor people have a meal ticket.

But I would argue that's suboptimal. A much better system is one where everyone prospers. Reaganomics put us on the libertarian path since about 1980, but as the boomers retire, Gen X and younger doesn't have to stay trapped under that system they didn't vote for. My feeling is that change will come swiftly over the next 2 years and that only the very stodgiest boomers will still believe they have the power.

There's talk of a general strike over the holidays this year where young people will not hire on to seasonal jobs, and abstaining from holiday buying will be encouraged. There's a chance that could break some of the smaller corporations that have borrowed against that holiday cashflow.

But in order for that to stick and let young people transition to something more like solarpunk, automating drudgerous labor and UBI, they're going to need alternatives. There's some hope with some of the back to basics trends like tiny homes and working jobs like Uber that let employees set their own hours. That stuff will be attacked on every front though until young people internalize that they actually have the power because they do the actual work.