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As young people take to the streets in countries across Europe, it is important to bluntly name the crisis that afflicts rich Western societies: hopelessness. Every nation has its own unique problems, and particular issues such as immigration or inflation can spark a broader protest, but it is becoming clear that growing numbers of people feel society is not organized to serve their interests.

What does an average worker want? To serve in their profession with dignity and earn a salary that allows for independent life decisions. Through their hard-earned money, they hope to afford the possibility of ascending the property ladder, paying for their children’s education, and having reasonable access to healthcare. This is the crux of what we in Europe call a social market economy. And this is what people expect when they do their part, which is to study, work, and pay taxes.

As young people take to the streets in countries across Europe, it is important to bluntly name the crisis that afflicts rich Western societies: hopelessness. Every nation has its own unique problems, and particular issues such as immigration or inflation can spark a broader protest, but it is becoming clear that growing numbers of people feel society is not organized to serve their interests.

What does an average worker want? To serve in their profession with dignity and earn a salary that allows for independent life decisions. Through their hard-earned money, they hope to afford the possibility of ascending the property ladder, paying for their children’s education, and having reasonable access to healthcare. This is the crux of what we in Europe call a social market economy. And this is what people expect when they do their part, which is to study, work, and pay taxes.

This social contract has been eroding in the developed West. The last several decades of growth in industrial productivity are reversing and the influence of trade unions declining. To understand this, we need to look back to the 1960s and ’70s, as post-World War II societies saw the proportion of total economic output paid to workers in the form of salaries and benefits grow. That share of labor to GDP, as it is known, peaked in countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the 1970s at around 70 percent. For most of........

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