Fernand Braudel, one of the prominent figures of the French Annales School, was not merely a historian narrating events and stories; he was a revolutionary thinker who changed our understanding of history. Braudel rejected the idea that politics and military confrontations are the core of historical analysis, viewing such events as a thin layer over a deep sea of economic and social structures. To him, history is not written through swift decisions or impromptu speeches but is forged through the slow accumulation of wheat prices, trade routes, the lives of peasants, work rhythms, and market transformations. 

Braudel reorganized the priorities of historians: Political events are fleeting moments, whereas the economy and society make up the enduring structures that shape a state's form and its ability to endure. Thus, explaining a revolution, war, or a regime's fall cannot be achieved merely by studying leaders, but by observing the underlying social classes, living standards, consumption patterns, and wealth distribution.

Using this profound methodology which portrays the economy as a mirror of society, we can understand the current Iranian reality, not through official speeches or public silence, but through the accumulating markets' numbers, the pressures weighing on families, and the silent erosions of structures under the heavy toll of rising costs.

When the average monthly income for a broad segment of Iranians falls to the equivalent of $180–$220 (compared to $600–$700 in 2010), while the prices of basic goods rise beyond any family's adaptation capacity, the logical question is not why Iranians remain silent, but how they are still managing to survive.

The prices of meat, vegetables, bread, medicine, transportation fares, and industrial goods have all transformed into social indicators exposing the chasm between the state and society.

A family that used to buy meat weekly now purchases it once a month. Families that used to switch to higher-quality medicine now seek out "cheaper versions" even if they are less effective. Long the stabilizing force of any state, the middle class has been swept into poverty.

When daily food baskets become a burden, and education, transportation, and health expenses require assuming debt, society transitions into a stage of "structural poverty," where poverty is no longer an individual condition but a collective phenomenon capable of altering power dynamics.

However, what hasn't materialized yet is the link between poverty and public anger.

Here, it is essential to highlight the most sensitive factor in the Iranian landscape: The Basij and the Revolutionary Guard, the institution that tightens the grip.

One core reason for the absence of protests is not popular satisfaction but the social-security deterrent system built by the Iranian regime over past decades.

The Basij is widespread in universities, neighborhoods, factories, and administrations, acting as a constant eye monitoring any centers of dissent.

The Revolutionary Guard doesn't play a mere military role but dominates major economic sectors: energy, construction, communications, ports, and even some manufacturing industries.

Through online censorship and social media oversight, the state builds a barrier that blocks any true measurement of societal sentiment.

With this structure, society becomes subject to three layers of pressure:

• Harsh living pressure
• Direct security pressure
• Media and information control pressure

Returning to the Annales School, history is not made by transient emergencies or passing political outbursts, but its deep trajectories are shaped through economic and social structures that accumulate slowly until they create something similar to a "seismic shift" in awareness and behavior. From this structural perspective, Iran today stands at a fragile historical moment: economic decline, the shrinking middle class, and widening inequality are not temporary trends but layers of pressure building like magma beneath a dormant volcano.

Protests may vary in speed and forms, but the deep structure described by the Annales suggests that when an explosion occurs, it is not spontaneous but the result of long periods of silent transformations. What Iran is experiencing today is that quiet pause before the storm, a subtle tremor hinting at a volcano simmering beneath the surface.