“It’s time for Canada to offer a new deal to its young people.”
That’s how the uber-liberal state worshippers at the Broadbent Institute introduced a new plan to fix the Great North’s ailing economy and boost the job prospects of young people. This agenda, aimed at a ripe voting demographic, is actually pretty clever. Its touters plan to address the concerns of those individuals worried most about the future.
It’s no secret young Canadians are fuming over the lack of opportunity handed down to them. All around the world, the millennial generation is facing less-than-perfect prospects. In Europe, youth unemployment is extraordinarily high. The United States isn’t much better. There is a growing resentment among those who want to get started with their adult lives. You can’t exactly see it – mindless protests without definable goals notwithstanding. You hear it in the tone of the voice of busboy with a college degree. You sense it in the tired grunts of a grocery store bagger who graduated from university with decent grades. It’s apparent in the desperation pouring from the intern caught between internships, who doesn’t waste a day without sending his resume out in search of full-time work.
The lack of stability and a career start is creating pessimism among young people. This is the kind of awkward tension the Broadbent Institute hopes to tap into by courting millennials. Polling a group of young Canadians between the ages of 20 and 30, the study found that 52% believe they will work on a contractual or non-permanent basis for much of their working lives. This is in comparison to 14% of baby boomers who had similar career paths. And while young people are increasingly anxious about job prospects, they are also concerned about the tax bill run up by their parents. One third of young folks and nearly half of boomers polled are concerned that tax revenues will soon dwindle for social programs.
According to the study, homeownership, income inequality, access to pensions, and the loss of manufacturing all weigh heavily on a young person’s mind. With all this growing agitation and distress, the Broadbent Institute confidently declares that it’s time for a “new deal” for millennials. What’s the plan exactly? It’s heavy on worrisome stats and light on actual policy proposals. The Institute is an adamant supporter of “progressive change” along with “democracy, equality, and sustainability.” That always translates into a statist combination of overzealous government bureaucracy with total control of society.
Details should be forthcoming; but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The progressives are looking to latch onto a new group of susceptible voters. Taking advantage of societal anxiety is a ruse used by dictators throughout history. Offering the desperate a way out of their misery is an almost guaranteed success in politics.
With all the emphasis on data and the future, the Broadbent Institute tip-toes around the harshest truth for young Canadians: they were given a crap deal by the previous generation. The productivity gains of the post-war boom were squandered in various government entitlement programs and pensions. When tax revenue was steady, it was easy for the political class to spend frivolously. But the bills are now coming due for the extravagant spending. The workers who were supposed to pick up the slack are having a hard time adjusting into the new life of serfdom.
The effect this will have for this inter-generational theft is still unknown. It could very well breed long-lasting resentment. It could undermine the nuclear family foundation. Maybe most detrimental, it could work itself into a political backlash that leads not to a freer economy or less government, but more state control.
Some of this is due to the reckless, myopic behavior of baby boomers, and some of it is due to changing trends in industrialization. Thanks to the spread of the internet, a lot of what constitutes “work” can be done all over the globe. There is no need for a stationary workplace, a stationary house, or a stationary life. If a sense of permanence is needed for security and structure, than it’s easy to see why the transition into the digital age is not going smoothly.
It’s from this resentment where the threat of tyranny resides. If those coming-of-age can’t picture why liberty and free enterprise will benefit their standard of living, they will turn to statism. Already, much of the millennial generation has been fooled into seeing government as an option for good and enrichment. Now all that’s left is to convince young adults of its efficacy through a string of programs that promise a better, cleaner, and more equitable society.
To their credit, the BroadBent Institute is focusing on the demographic hardest hit by ongoing economic stagnation. Millennials polled elsewhere claim to distrust both corporations and the government to provide for them. This attitude is in line with a recent article in the theological publication First Things, that brings focus on the individualistic attitudes of young adults beginning to make their way in the world. They are well aware nothing is secure. The days of secure employment with a comfortable pension are long gone. The generation on the cusp of retirement squandered that privilege. Writer Pete Spiliakos sheds a light on this new feeling of isolation that has paradoxical consequences. He notes,
“[T]he problem is that the millennials, in their social atomization, will (like the rest of us) end up having to depend on somebody sometime. If they know they can turn to no one else, they will turn ever more often to the government. That is why the millennials’ combination of low social trust and friendliness (in the abstract) toward bigger government is only a seeming contradiction.”
A large welfare state has replaced a decentralized network of voluntary charity organizations. There used to be a time when the government wasn’t large enough to provide substantial material help to large segments of the population. Now, what economist Frank Shostak calls the “subsistence fund” is large enough to draw from and pay for welfare handouts. Government officials are emboldened to spend, snaring the hapless public in a net of dependency.
If government was the prime actor in creating this mess, it surely isn’t the answer. A real “new deal” for young adults would start with a blunt message: you were let down by a political class focused on the present and apathetic voters who chose to send you to the poorhouse. There is no other explanation. The economy hasn’t been tapped out, but it’s getting smothered by government regulation and taxes. And the worst part is: your parents played a significant role in the deterioration.
The blame game only goes so far though. At some point, millennials need to take the reins and realize government is not the savior it pretends to be. Saving more than you consume is the foundation for wealth creation. When government promises to be there in case of an emergency, it breeds carelessness.
Any new deal that promises young people prosperity via government is a raw deal. It should be rejected root and branch. But state propaganda has a way of twisting rationality. Something tells me the Siren song of government benefits will be too much for the young to deny. That means real upheaval will come when there is simply not enough money to sustain everything. By then, the only choice will be to sink or swim. Unfortunately, many young adults never received proper swimming lessons.