Laurie Penny and the limits of the “generation wars” approach
Those who read Laurie Penny (Penny Red) regularly – as I do – will be familiar with her distinctive focus on the youth, and the specific barriers that we as a generation face. In a nutshell she emphasises the disparity in opportunities between those who are young today and our parents generation, and the manner in which baby boomers have benefited at the expense of the younger generation. There is certainly some mileage in this: the manipulation of the housing market has, for example, brought about a massive transfer of wealth to people now in their 50s, and we will all have to hand over huge sums of money if we ever wish to get on the property ladder.
The existence of contradictions – the fact that the inequality between the young and the old is overlaid by other form of inequality – is not a reason to reject Penny’s approach out of hand. After all every axis of inequality – for instance race, or gender – is complicated by other layers of difference. And the fact that a black doctor might be in a different position from a black NEET doesn’t mean we should simply stop talking about race.
The problem, however, comes when the contradictions are so great, and so widely ignored that one ends up describing society in a way that is in the main inaccurate. This is brought home by Penny’s latest article in which she states:
It’s conceivable that our parents love us, in their own special way, but that hasn’t stopped them from mortgaging our futures and selling off all the privileges that they took for granted – the jobs, the safe places to live, the affordable housing, the free education…
In reality, the vast majority of baby boomers went piss-hole secondary moderns, where their right to a decens education were denied to them – and to a far greater extent than most young people today. The free university education – which we have been denied – was, back then, enjoyed only by around 10 per cent of the population. In short those who enjoyed a better deal than us as far as free education was concerned were an atypical, largely middle class, minority.
In both the material and cultural sphere there are many ways in which our generation haven’t had it harder than a vast swathe of those older than us. In material terms it is difficult to ignore the fact the real incomes of of most people in their twenties generally enjoy substantially higher real incomes than their counterparts 30 years ago. And many of those in their 40s or 50s today are plagued by the same employment insecurities which affect the youth. Meanwhile, we live in epoch in which the appearance of youth is glorified and in which those who are and appear older face a continuous cultural onslaught.
The significance of this is that the system gives a pretty raw deal to most of those above our age. And as such it is foolhardy to imagine that only those under 35 can be real agents of social transformation. Yet how the serious intergenerational solidarity that we need be reconciled with the kind of collective guilt that Laurie Penny ascribes to those older than us when she says:
The young are in the process of being screwed over in a variety of cold and creative ways by an age group who are richer, freer and more powerful than any generation this country has seen…
It’s conceivable that our parents love us, in their own special way, but that hasn’t stopped them from mortgaging our futures and selling off all the privileges that they took for granted them from mortgaging our futures and selling off all the privileges that they took for granted – the jobs, the safe places to live, the affordable housing…
My emphasis.
Finally the idea – espoused not exclusively by Laurie Penny – of the older generation selling off the crown jewels of the welfare state, at our expense, represents a wrong headed approach to political economy. This is because it treats the economy -and the welfare state in particular – as a thing rather than as a process. The welfare state is not simply an asset that has been run down. Rather it is a constant process of redistributing the vast wealth that a developed economy creates, to promote general well being. The process has been wound down as the agents that sustained it – Keynesians, leftists, social democrats and the organised working class – have been weakened. What is necessary, if we are to get it running at full throttle, is not a rebellion against the older generation but a serious and inclusive struggle for social justice by all who have an interest in it.
Reader Comments
I wouldn’t entirely agree with the conclusion Reuben. It’s primarily the welfare state itself, not the erosion of it, that causes this transfer. The two biggest single items of expenditure by the government are pensions and the NHS. This is spending entirely and primarily respectively on pensioners. Add to this the demographic timebomb – that there were many babyboomers to every pensioner they supported, however with people living longer and the babyboomer being the largest generation this will reverse – and you have a huge transfer of wealth. This reinforces itself, as the median voter is now 55 years old. Pensioners represent such a strong political group we have money giveaways like the winter fuel allowance that is entirely untargetted, so goes to the rich as well as the poor that need them. You’ll also notice the only bits of the budget that have increased with the huge swingeing cuts have been those two huge items – pensions and the NHS. There’s a reason for this: politics.
This is all just how the state transfers wealth still, so doesn’t include the unprecidented increase in house prices that mean our generation is the first where even those in good jobs will likely be unable to afford to buy a house until their late thirties.
It’s not about the babyboomers having benefitted from things we don’t, like a free university education, it’s about them still benefitting from things we’re paying for as they price us out of the housing market. It’s about the state being increasingly set up to benefit pensioners in a way that won’t be available to us when we grow old (it’s unsustainable), because they’re such a powerful demographic politically.