Youth radical politics.

'Generation Left' is a book by Keir Milburn. William Davies reviewed the book in an essay in the LRB, 20 February 2020, and drew up further facts about politics and the young since 'Generation Left' was published in May 2019. The book and the review are definitely worth their salt, but this blog will borrow some key facts from those sources and others about young people and politics in Britain today - aiming at specific conclusions about Britain's potential political future.

First, a really delicious quotation from the review:
'If you are over the age of 50, the odds are that you are happy with how it's all worked out.' (The UK General Election result.) 'If you are under the age of 50, the odds are you are not, and if you are under the age of 30, you may well be bloody furious.'

But, like everything else in politics, there is an argument, in this case not whether youth are radical (even the most rabid Tory press agree the youth are mainly radical-lefties, tinged with Marxism!)  The argument is why has this happened? Inevitably we find that the answer to that question, the reason for the radicalisation of the young, leads to different paths and reflects different social interests.

There are various responses to younger people becoming radical. One example is the often referred to selfishness of the baby boomers (born 1945 - to 1964) who have sucked up the best of the incomes, the health services, welfare and the most devastatingly, have been able to seize home ownership, which in turn has become a wealth asset. It takes seconds, if any time at all, to unravel the boulder in the eye of this piece of hollow reasoning.

It seems plain that the period following WW2 was a patch of western history when most ordinary, working class people in the West were generally able to gain better standards of living than any previous period. But how? Kindness from the ruling classes? Has this ever been a feature of History? More likely the victory over fascism and the organisation of the working classes through unions etc., forced a better redistribution that any previous period. Society between 1945 to 1979 was not created by the selfishness enjoyed by the 'baby boomers'. As unions were fought and defeated; as public services were sold off, it was the selfishness of the ruling class led-society from 1980 that started the social decline of millions and millions of ordinary people, in various degrees, across the western world.

The deliberate act of Thatcher to monetise homes building a working class Tory bloc (long before Boris Johnson) was not in any meaningful sense, a 'choice.' Jobs were becoming precarious. The unions were being defeated. 'Buying' your council house seemed a defence against poverty. But despite the impact of the Thatcher revolution, those young people who have challenged society openly, in action and their argument, seem thus far to have dismissed the nonsense of the selfish baby boomers.

Then there are the 'cultural' arguments that suggest the 'over' universitised experience of the young and extensive lefty education in general (including 'dangerous' institutions like the BBC, the courts, leading show biz stars etc) that leads to unfair judgments on society, particularly in relation to patriotism, the armed forces, immigration etc. There is a genuine fear in the tabloid press that they will cease to exist, and thereby break the lode stone of Britain's 'deep' character. And it is true that the British youth are more educated - in terms of degrees etc., than their forebears. New definitions based on so called 'cultural wars' are used to define this chasm between the youth and their elders. The communication technology is supposed to underline the rift. But, again, these young people that have shifted, particularly in the UK and the US towards radical politics, deny a mainly cultural explanation of their disengagement from modern society.

It is easy to imagine that young radicals have been seeking their own way to a better world. Standard histories describe such moments in all political upheavals - as though the sheer innocence, coupled with deep feelings of the young creates the need for drama. Less picturesquely perhaps, there is a deep economic class basis for young people in the West to radicalise today.

In the late 1970s in the UK owner occupancy was around 50%. On the eve of the crisis of 2008 owner occupancy was 70% and after 2008 it fell to 63%. Meanwhile the rate of home ownership among young adults has halved over the past twenty years. Currently more than £17 billion is loaned to around 1.3 million students in England each year. The value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2019 reached £121 billion. The average debt among the cohort of borrowers who finished their courses in 2018 was £36,000. The average salary for full time work in 2019 was £36,610.. The median starting salary for UK graduates for 2018-2019 is between £19,000 and £22,000 a year. The average earnings of employees aged between 22 are 29 per year are £24 850 for men and £22.921 for women.

Despite the mill stones around their necks and their rental future, students are in the 'privileged' sector of UK youth. They amount now to 49% of young people of the relevant age. The conditions for the 51% non students are worse. According to ASHE, 16-to-17-year-olds entering the job market can expect to earn under £200 a week; under £10,400 a year - should they have a yearly contract.

Finally, the decline of young people's economic conditions has been projected into the future as a new study that examines life expectancy, welfare and health has been published (25 February 2020.) From the Financial Times, we read the following;
'Improvements in life expectancy in England have stalled for the first sustained period in 120 years after a decade of government austerity, according to one of the world’s leading experts on the link between social deprivation and health.

Describing his findings as “shocking”, Michael Marmot, who heads the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, highlighted rising child poverty, declines in education funding, an increase in zero-hours contracts and the large number of people resorting to food banks. The result was “ignored communities with poor conditions and little reason for hope”.

Sir Michael told the Financial Times: “I’m not saying ‘austerity is killing people’. I’m saying it’s highly likely — because we identified the key drivers of health and health inequalities, and because they’ve changed in an adverse direction — that those changes are responsible for the health effects that we see.”

He has drawn a stronger link between austerity and the slowing increase in life expectancy than in his last report, in 2017.'

This is the meaning of the polarisation of British politics and society. Brexit has never been its basis and nor has its result somehow achieved any real solution, anymore than the radicalisation of young people is based on some fantasy, on a 'culture war' or youth's wishful thinking. The Labour Party members now deciding their votes for leader will have a serious effect on whether young people can organise and express their radical views, from the Labour platform, across society. Labour under Corbyn offered a route that opened to the radical youth, and now so does Sanders and a section of the US Democrats. But both of the would-be dominant forces in those traditional parties want to pretend that they can wish the polarisation of society out of existence and find their own fantasy of a 'middle way.' If they win the leadership vote, their failure will mean that the young will learn yet another sad truth about who are their friends and will need to take an entirely different and much harder road.