I am a Canadian (so still part of the British Commonwealth) and so I learned a different perspective on the causes of the American Revolution ... although to be fair, Americans scholars have become a lot more honest in the past 30 years.
Americans WERE NOT living in intolerable conditions under the British. Even the famous "Tea Tax" that helped spark the Revolution, left Americans paying less for Tea than Londoners.
What drove Americans nuts, and rightly so, was lack of direct political representation in the British Parliament. In this sense, they were "second-class citizens."
To be fair to the British, the logistical nightmare of having direct political representation for colonies 2-3 weeks (in the best-case-scenario) away by sailing ship, would have been insoluble.
Mercantilism also played a big part. By restricting Americans from trading with non-British entities severely inhibited their economy ... leading to dramatically different economic interests and massive law-breaking (smuggling).
With respect to the "cow's ear" thing, let's be careful about making moral inferences based upon singular analogies.
I do not believe humans are born being "sow's ears." I believe human beings are born being human beings ... and that entails a lot of hard-wired biology that cannot be overcome with political platitudes.
People work harder for their own self-interests than they do for some nebulous concept of the State. "Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely." If you accept these premises about human beings, as I do, you design a dramatically different society than that envisioned by Marx.