Generational War

Every western country is at war with itself. Two generations that see the world and experience it wildly differently.

What happens when two generations with wildly different problems need to debate one another. You need a country wide debate. This is often called the Elections. When you see strange results in an election, it is a sign that the debate is not playing out well.

The West is particularly having a lot of trouble reconciling both sides.

The Old generations:

The post-war generations, those born between 1950 and 1980 came into a world which did not have the ultra-wealthy or the ultra-Poor. The war had put paid to that. They came into a world where every capitalist nation was behaving “socialist”. The government was engaged in massive spending programs that provided them employment. They had social security, including private companies that offered pension schemes. The real estate prices were rock-bottom and everyone could afford to buy a house.

Between 1990 and 2020, this generation retired having accumulated incredible wealth. Ensuring that real estate prices had peaked and taxes had hit all-time lows. After having cashed in on all the socialism, they turned. They did not want to be taxed on the wealth. Hence, they moved rightwards. They think they made it through “hard-work”, as if the state support had no role to play.

Oh! Also, they ruined the environment with chemicals and followed some of the most lax environmental standards.

The New generation:

The children born after 1980 a.k.a. millennials started graduating in a world that was already stacked against them. They were coming into a world where right from their eduction everything threatened to push them into debt.

Source: Mother Jones

Housing costs have shot up 100% in the last 20 years.

Source: CNBC

Education costs 3 times as much.

Hence…

Fertility rate is crashing. With all this debt, many don’t have to have kids and those who do cannot because of all the chemicals in the environment.

But the social security is not something that the older generation is willing to compromise on. They feel they “worked-hard” and they deserve it. Taxes from a smaller population base is not enough to provide it.

Also, the older generation did not tell the young - “your life sucks because we made everything expensive.” They said; immigrants are the problem. Otherwise, you would have all the great jobs, and you would be just fine.

With a crashing fertility rate, the only way to widen the tax base is by allowing migrants! But the new generation does not want immigrants because they fear fewer opportunities!

Every election in the West - US, Canada, France, UK, Germany; is essentially a debate between these two sides playing out with a healthy garnish of misinformation.