The Broken Covenant
The covenant between work and reward has been silently severed. Where labour once purchased dignity, it now barely secures survival—a fundamental revaluation of human worth. We haven't grown less industrious; our industry has simply grown less valued. Productivity rises whilst compensation stagnates, creating an ever-widening chasm between effort and outcome. The tragedy isn't our unwillingness to work but work's diminishing ability to fulfil its primal promise: that through the labour of our hands and minds, we might craft lives worth living. What appears as resignation is actually recognition—the clear-eyed understanding that a system designed for imbalance cannot be balanced by effort alone.