Digital nomads: my homeland is the computer
The generation of the double crisis: an education that does not serve and the excesses received
The
millennials
agreed to the labor market during the great recession of 2008 and today, when they are supposed to be forming a family and climbing at work, still stuck in the same place:
low wages, unable to save, facing another global cataclysm , that of the pandemic
, and in the face of an uncertain future that looks catastrophic due to global warming. But above all,
millennials
are
exhausted, exhausted, tired of working like robots, internally suffocated by addiction to social networks
and the never-ending news cycle. "Since I can remember, I have not stopped working at any time", explains
Anne Helen Petersen
in
I can not anymore.
How the millennials became the burned-out generation
(Captain Swing).
"The biggest obstacle we face is that all of us who are burned out and exhausted wonder why it happens to us and acquire a language to talk about it. Many of us have been educated to think that things are like that, period.
The mere fact of start using words like "precarious" or "burned" to describe how we got to this situation and it is a big step
, "says the writer, who shot to fame after writing an article about it burned he was in
BuzzFeed
that went viral, reaching seven million readings.
For Petersen, part of the blame for what happens to us
millennials is
with the
boomers,
who are between 60 and 70 years old, and in the United States they are the largest and most influential generation that has ever existed. Today they are parents, grandparents, some of them are already retired and facing the process of growing up. In the 70s they were in the situation that
millennials go
through today
:
entering the world of work, discovering what it means to start a family ... only that in their case everything went well for them.
Raised by parents who had suffered the hardships of World War II or the Great Depression, the boomers were pampered and tapped into a robust and expanding economy. They grew up against the backdrop of the Vietnam protests, which did not stop them later embracing the culture of self, Reaganism and market-oriented thinking that has brought about major changes in the safety net of people and the economy.
"In 1950, a CEO made about 20 times more than a normal employee; in 2013 he made more than 204 times more,"
summarizes Petersen. According to the Federal Reserve, at 35
baby boomers
had 21% of the nation's wealth. At the same age, Generation X had 8% and
the
millennials
who will be 35 years old in 2023 will by then have only 5% of the wealth, despite being 22% of the population.
Something has gone wrong. "The security that we were promised in adult life never seems to come," Petersen explains. The tale of meritocracy and hard work has turned out to be false. And it is not that the social elevator has broken: it is that it has been reversed.
"In the case of the United States, it is evident that its safety network is less robust than that of any other developed country. Changing and strengthening that network to stop living with the fear of falling and sinking is the first thing. In all countries these Networks have holes, repairing them is the first step towards a change. It can be done in many ways:
creating new laws, protecting the worker more
or doing something as simple as updating the laws that regulate work today.
We work in a very different way than 20 years ago,
"reflects the writer.
Anne Helen Petersen's essay focuses on the United States, where the gap between rich and poor has always been brutal. Until recently,
Europe
viewed inequality figures with some superiority. But that too is over. We are not much better here: so far this century, in Spain the difference in wealth that exists between 65-year-olds and 35-year-olds has doubled, already resembling that which exists in the US, according to the
Spain 2050
report
.
Today,
65-year-olds hoard five times more wealth than 35-year-olds.
All the indicators (the youth unemployment rate, precariousness, job dissatisfaction) point in the same direction: Spain lives in a "duality" that "is splitting our society in two", according to the study carried out from Moncloa.
What are the consequences? Petersen points to
a "radicalization" of the millennial generation,
increasingly inclined towards less neoliberal positions in the face of its galloping precariousness. Joe Biden won the election by 51% of the vote, but in the 18-29 age bracket, that percentage was 61% and within the Democratic Party, hardly anyone is aware that the voters of the future are closer to
Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
than the president. The
Financial Times
warned not too long ago a possible "
revolt against the rich
"and the" radicalization of graduates. "Deutsche Bank has also warned in its reports that, by demographic logic, the youngest and most abused voters will soon decide the elections and could
" reverse "decades of policies. economic
positions towards more redistributive positions.
"We are immersed in a process of radicalization in slow motion
, caused by the general feeling that life is getting worse. There is a real contrast between ours and previous generations, where the feeling was completely opposite," explains Petersen.
"But this radicalization is taking place in two directions: on the one hand you have people realizing that
work should not be the center of your life,
that it cannot be that we have been trained to work as robots. And on the other side you have those who feel that the social order is collapsing, people who believe that immigrants are to blame for their job, their hold on society, has vanished. It is something that we are seeing in many parts of the world, "he reflects." The question now is: how do we convince all those who are disenchanted that we must seek a true paradigm shift?
There is no use trying to turn the clock back, rewind time and try to go back to a past 20 or 30 years ago
supposedly better than, in reality, it was only better for those who were doing well then, "he adds.
Petersen's essay is very clarifying because it mixes macroeconomic analysis and highly illustrative statistics with intimate experiences that describe an entire generation: one of the most politicized that, however, feels disappointed by parties and institutions. Cultured and restless, although she spends more than the confessable hours
scrolling
on Instagram.
Will we continue to be just as exhausted and overexploited at 50,
liking
like zombies? And what about Generation Z?
"In the United States, the absence of solidarity has been the dominant trend in the last century, particularly among the middle class, precisely because it is the class that does not usually perceive itself as such, but as" normal "people. See
what will happen if that middle class continues to destabilize at the rate of the last 30 years.
Will the feeling of class solidarity return? Or will people focus on the well-being of their family? The collectivism-individualism debate is very complex. It is still too early to know how
the millennial precariat will
react
after the COVID
. There is an essay by Robert Putnam,
The Upswing,
which predicts a boom in collective thinking.
The potential for it to resurface exists, of course.
The only thing clear to me is that we must make
change irresistible,
"says Petersen.
What will happen when
boomers pass
away and millennials
inherit savings and property
?
It is clear that not everyone will be so lucky, but in the United States alone it is estimated that in the next decade, they will inherit about $ 68 trillion from their
baby boomer
relatives
.
If that prediction comes true, they
would be up to five times richer in 2030 than they are today.
We will see what they vote then.
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