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Author Topic: On Intergenerational Issues
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 12 July 2002 04:04 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was rather piqued by this thread's drift into economic issues.

First, Ingeniouslee:

quote:
I wish I could be in Toronto for this demonstration. Money and transportation being the issues. Oh Yeah, did I forget to mention I am poor?
Just recently off assistance, barely making ends meet if you can call it that.
I don't know how any of us Gen Xers can get out of the rut our parents dug for us.
I was raised believing there was an endless supply of credit and jobs and houses and cars to be had for the taking. This is the way my father lived and I bought into it hook line and sinker.

Then, Jacob Two-Two:

quote:
Ingeniouslee, don't blame your parents. We are not paying for prior generations as the conventional wisdom would have it. The recession that Canada labours under is the result of political decisions, plain and simple.

(Editor's note: The problem is that many baby boomers themselves do not make the connection between the 'good times' of the 1950s and 1960s and the different cultural perceptions of political engagement, activism, and taxes at the time, which they themselves are largely responsible both for not defending and for actively turning against the continuance of such policies.)

Finally, Trisha:

quote:
Ingeniouslee, I really wish that your generation would quit blaming everything on your parents. For one thing, it was your parents who fought for the rights you enjoy and are in danger of loosing. When I was born, there was no medicare, no welfare, the war was just ending and all people became hopeful that days of plenty were coming. They began fighting for the rights to be full citizens, not ruled by the necessities of the war and the depression that was just before it. The government used this to mollify the citizens. They opened programs to make people feel secure, and it worked. Jobs started to become plentiful, industrial, health and business advancements began. In the last 50 years, there were more advancements than occured in the 100 years before it or even longer. People were happy to work, prices were reasonably linked to income and people were able to begin building toward security. It didn't last long.

Now I've made pronouncements on the subject before, and as people who've seen me post before know, I can be of two minds on the matter - probably because I see it from both perspectives.

The generation I grew up with has only the faintest inkling of how good (as James Laxer once wrote) "the average person had it". All 'we' (I use quotes since using the word "we" is often a cover for a person to push his or her own ideas by implying that other people think the same way, when it may not necessarily the case - so I wish to make clear that I am speaking in broad generalities and there will be exceptions that disprove the rule) know is the period of slower economic growth, higher unemployment rates, and a growing culture of tolerance of callousness towards each other and towards whole groups.

Attitudes that would have gotten your ass kicked in the sixties prevail today, especially among young people, because that's what we've been socialized into believing.

So it's easy to see the resentment that exists among youth as those who have a vague understanding of the differences between the two eras but do not understand the chain of events that drove these changes see an easy target - their forebears - and lash out.

But at the same time one cannot really blame individual baby-boomers or even their individual parents. The policies that drove the Keynesian consensus were predicated on all sectors of society having an equal political engagement, and a willingness to share around the pain as well as the rewards inherent in the boom-bust characteristic of a capitalist economy.

To the extent that policies are not determined by masses and instead by elites ensures that at least one sector of society has no intention of holding up its end of the bargain and will seek any opportunity it can to grab more of the pie for itself and leave the dregs for the rest of us to bite and scratch at each other like ferocious lions over one last morsel while they laugh at how easy it is to get the minimum wage workers resentful of welfare recipients.

Ok. I've done more than enough babbling on my own. Sorry! So I'll stop here. Come one, come all, young and old.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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