how much comfortable our generations have become in contrast to earlier ones

But there's also another element: the increasing individualism and the erosion of social fabric and community means that people feel they have to take the risk of civil disobedience pretty much on their own. I know I do: I have no family or [essentially] friends in London. If I joined a general strike I'd be on the street  in about two months.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman