"Just asking a question" is one the most obvious tactics of intellectual weasels.
The assumption is that conditions were once such that popular movements or uprisings of the poorer classes were relatively more frequent in the past than in recent years. The article explores in perfectly sober terms how these conditions may have changed.
You may have ideological leanings that predispose you to find the discussion inherently inflammatory, but there are plenty of reasonable people who do not see it that way.
I don't imagine Socrates ever responded to someone who argued back that, "I'm just asking a question."