The Tocqueville paradox

From Wikipedia:

Tocqueville effect

The Tocqueville effect (also known as the Tocqueville paradox) is the phenomenon in which, as social conditions and opportunities improve, social frustration grows more quickly. It is named after the French diplomat, historian, and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville.

Definition

The effect is based on Alexis de Tocqueville's observations on the French Revolution and later reforms in Europe and the United States. Another way to describe the effect is the aphorism "the appetite grows by what it feeds on". For instance, after greater social justice is achieved, there may be more fervent opposition to even smaller social injustices than before.

The effect suggests a link between social equality or concessions by the regime and unintended consequences, as social reforms can raise expectations that are difficult to fulfill. According to the Tocqueville effect, a revolution is likely to occur after an improvement in social conditions, in contrast to Marx's theory of revolution as a result of progressive immiseration of the proletariat (deterioration of conditions).

Related to the perhaps more commonly recognized concept of Affluenza.

Affluenza describes the psychological and social effects of affluence. It is a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, and is used most commonly by critics of consumerism. Some psychologists consider it to be a pseudo-scientific term; however, the word continues to be used in scientific literature.

The word is thought to have been first used in 1908, and to have been adopted for its most common current usage in California in 1973. It was also used by John Levy, executive director of the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco in 1984 to describe the lack of motivation that could dog wealthy people. It was popularized in 1997 with a PBS documentary of the same name and the subsequent book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (2001, revised in 2005, 2014). These works define affluenza as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more". A more informal definition of the term describes it as "a quasi-illness caused by guilt for one's own socio-economic superiority". The term "affluenza" has also been used to refer to an inability to understand the consequences of one's actions because of financial privilege.