Mistakes of a Generation Frustrate Young Kiwis

January 23, 2008

The “generation gap” concept, which was first coined in the 1960s, is about to come back to haunt its progenitors.

The Baby Boomer generation, which is about to retire, have had unprecedented wealth, and freedom in the history of Western civilization. But this freedom in which they seized the hour, has come at a cost many 1960s generation adolescents perhaps may find ironic.

Now the same people that went out and experimented, and opened their minds, and worlds; have become the mirrors of their forebears generation, the very squares and hypocrites they claimed their parents to be.

In fact, the Baby Boomer generation is even worse than their predecessors. Around the developed world, and in New Zealand, they have, with their votes, sacrificed the Welfare State, which guaranteed freedom from poverty, ill health, and illiteracy, on the altar of Thatcherism/Rogernomics, and worshipped the twin pagan ideals of monetarism and individualism. The generation to which they bequeath the world faces unprecedented and costly problems as a result of worship of false idols. At the same time, our generation must be bold, and show the courage to combat problems generated by our forebears.

1. Climate Change/Global Warming - This problem, while not initiated by the Baby Boomers, has been neglected to the extent that it now presents a real danger, not just to standards of living, but also to the continued existence of life on this planet. They have delayed making the tough decisions on renewable energy, which represents our only panacea, in order to keep living above the means of the country and the environment.

2. Consumer and Household are at record levels, along with record interest rates. Tax structures which encourage zero-risk investment have forced a generation of homeowners out of the housing market, and the move towards franchising in business had lead to widespread occurence of low-wage job factories. The real median wage is only 33% of what is was in 1974. In many cases, people have to simply borrow money to survive - they cannot wait and save up for that filling.

3. The Abandonment of “Free Education” and our Export of Young Talent.
A generation which had its education paid for by their parents taxes, now seeks its children to pay their own, citing poor attitudes towards study among their own generation as sufficient justification for tertiary fees, so they can enjoy the benefits of lower taxes themselves. The Baby Boomers neglected their many opportunities to intervene to prevent rising tertiary fees in the 1990s, to the extent that an three year education costing around $30,000, is most many can afford these days, and those post-graduate students, who typically generate much of the wealth in a small country, find little reason to stay.

This situation is also untenable. Eventually, fees will have to come down in proportion to income, and universities funded properly, if New Zealand wants to remain an educated country, meaning Generation X and Y will be required to pay for their own children’s education as part of tax, as well as their own.

The solution is not more monetarism, but less. The time for negotiated renewal has long since passed. It is time for the leaders of Generation X and Y to stand up and forcefully grab the baton of power from the unrelenting Baby Boomers. The reason for this is not so that we can become a fresh tide of the same sea, but to embrace the seemingly forgotten virtue of community and national vitality, and place it on the scales of liberty, which have become so unbalanced in the last 25 years.

“A view to the future with an eye on the past.” This correction in direction need not be a retreat to the glorified past. In fact, people tend to look at the past with rose-tinted glasses - otherwise how else would National be polling in the late 40s? Take what has worked in the past, not uncritically, and reforge it in the oven of the public arena in open debate. Where do we want to take our country in 20, or 30 years? What has the political support in the broader progressive community?

Many of my generation, my friends, colleagues, and political allies, possess both the necessary ideas and will to embark on this process of reform. Our detractors and political opponents remain engaged want to continue to engage the issues of now and the future with the tools of the past, to the detriment of the community at large.

IT IS TIME TO STEP UP TO BAT.