I know packing up and leaving isn't a real possibility for most people, but that dream of it permeates everything

This reminds me of Stalin discussing how a shop-owner-turned-worker may have the material conditions of a worker, but still lack proletarian consciousness because their plan is to save up enough money to open the shop again. It’s only when they realize that they make barely enough to survive and they give up on once again gaining some bourgeois character that they can instead gain a proletarian consciousness.

I know so many people who would never dream of falling into the hustle culture trap, but are constantly dreaming of leaving the country or of homesteading and going off the grid. And maybe some of them could actually escape. But it does very little for those of us who can’t escape and know it.