bourgeois rebellion
Millennium People, J.C. Ballard, 2003
J C Ballard 
In this, the last novel of Ballard, a middle class enclave in London is lead by a psychopathic pediatrician into full scale rebellion. The pediatrician leader of the rebellion, Dr. Gould explains:
Cheap holidays, overpriced housing, educations that no longer buy security. Anyone earning less than £300,000 a year scarcely counts. You’re just a prole in a three-button suit…And we don’t like ourselves for it. People don’t like themselves today. We’re a rentier class left over from the last century. We tolerate everything, but we know that liberal values are designed to make us passive. We think we believe in God but we’re terrified by the mysteries of life and death. We’re deeply self-centered but can’t cope with the idea of our finite selves. We believe in progress and the power of reason, but are haunted by the darker sides of human nature. We’re obsessed with sex, but fear the sexual imagination and have to be protected by huge taboos. We believe in equality but hate the underclasses. We fear our bodies and, above all, we fear death. We’re an accident of nature, but we think we’re at the center of the universe. We’re a few steps from oblivion, but we hope we’re somehow immortal.
The main character, David is a psychologist obsessed with finding the people responsible for a bomb at Heathrow that killed his ex wife. He is led to Chelsea Marina where its residence are up in arms over parking meters installed in front of their houses, increased management fees, and other life threatening issues. He meets and starts sleeping with Kay the charismatic leader of the rebellion, meets Vera the government trained bomb maker, and meets Gould whose idea it is that random acts of vandalism and violence will do most to shake up the power establishment. Gould, the psychopath leads the rebellion into more and more extreme demonstrations while privately engaging in acts of deadly violence.
Interesting in showing that the bourgeois class that is expected to be the stable anchor of society is capable to being the most volatile, capable of leading the revolution. And this was written years before the housing bubble burst, the financial system collapsed, and the political system went into rigor mortis.
Fung-Lin posted Ballard’s death and a remembrance.