Environment punishes the assertive bahaviour.
That's why every demand for a raise ends in a strike. And this also explains the fact that most reforms end in street demonstrations. Abortion rights, the abolition of slavery all these are constant struggles ad end up in street fights.
When an environment punishes assertion however, it is not making a moral statement about you. It is simply protecting its own stability.
Any organized system an institution, a workplace, even a classroom runs on a set of implicit constraints about who decides, how fast things move, how conflict is handled, what counts as acceptable deviation. These constraints keep the system from fragmenting. Assertion especially from lower-power positions introduces unpredictability. It challenges roles, delays processes, creates negotiation overhead, and can trigger cascades of further resistance. So the system responds by increasing the cost of assertion. Not because assertion is “bad,” but because it is destabilizing relative to the system’s current configuration.
When your boss refuses to respond to your request for a raise, that's exactly what system stability looks like. Why bother with a raise when the entire system is currently operating cheaper?
