09-11-2020, 05:43 PM
(09-09-2020, 11:48 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: What I find interesting here is the counter-narrative to the argument posed by Strauss and Howe in their book. They maintained that any fiscal crisis that arises in the fourth turning would be addressed by a willing sacrifice on the part of Boomers for the sake of younger generations. The Deutsche Bank analysis argues quite the opposite, that Millennials will vote for redistributive reductions in Boomer wealth (and entitlements?) in order to make up for the intergenerational inequities.
Both predict the same events. Whether the Boomers are heros or victims is just a matter of how we want to spin the story.
I don't believe that Millenials understand enough about the issues to vote for the right thing, anyway. It's not like they told their elected representatives to keep the economy open and let the old people die, which the Deutsche Bank theory would say they should have done. I think it's more likely that a Boomer led government will make the necessary changes.
All that said, didn't Generations say it was the Reactives, not the Idealists, that voted against their own economic interests? Why do we think it will be different this time?
(09-10-2020, 08:17 AM)sbarrera Wrote: I have to say, I feel like we've been holding our breaths forever waiting for the 'blue wave' of Millennial voters ushering in a a progressive redisritibution of wealth. It's always just around the corner in the next election. And yet (and here I'm beating a dead horse) Sanders and Warren, the two candidates proposing exactly such a thing as wealth redistribution, have been sidelined politically. Where were all those Millennial voters during the Democratic primaries??
Those Millenial voters were voting for Sanders. They just weren't a majority of the Democratic party, so they didn't get their candidate. The power in the Democratic party is still solidly with the neoliberals.
"[P]rogressive redisritibution of wealth" isn't an actual solution, anyway. What's needed is a systemic change from rewarding capital investment to rewarding working. That took 17 years, from 1929 to 1946, last time around. We're party way through that, but we've got at least 5 years to go, and a war to get through first.