The impetus to join a movement appears among the poor and the wealthy, so it can’t be strictly economic (the abjectly poor aren’t actually frustrated: the chapter is instead about why they aren’t). It appears among the unemployed and the ambitious, so it can’t just be “a job”. It appears among the smart and the stupid, so it’s not simple intelligence. What these groups instead share is dissatisfaction with the self and an attempt to substitute their self for a larger group identity. Or, this:
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause."
Frustration in Hoffer’s lexicon, is never only frustration with “the system” or the status quo. It is always, always frustration with yourself. Even that frustration with the system is your own relation to it. This doesn’t mean it’s unjustified. It might be, like if the system stole your wife, but it might not be (examples abound). Its objective justification is fundamentally irrelevant. The individual always feels that it is.
