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Generational Conflict Begins…

We found an editorial in the usually gentlemanly Financial Times that was downright caustic.  We don’t usually comment on angry rants, but this one is somewhat instructive in that it could be a sign of things to come.  

We have heard about “generational warfare” for decades now, but now, in the wake of the worst bear market and recession since the Great Depression, it might finally be upon us.  The Baby Boomers have always had charmed lives of sorts.  Born into the affluent, suburban, post-war America of the 1940s and 50s, they were spoiled practically from birth with a sense of entitlement.  

Despite their size as a generation — the largest in history — as a group they have many of the characteristics of only children, such as a predisposition to self-indulgence and a deep belief that they are (and should be!) the center of attention. 

This isn’t all bad, of course.  This is precisely the kind of audacious personality that was needed to make something like Apple or Microsoft happen.  Without the outsized egos of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and other prominent Boomers, our collective standard of living would be materially lower.  We also live today in a more open and liberal society due largely to the social revolutions of the Boomers’ youth.  Though we sometimes romance the simplicity and calm of the 1950s, few people would actually want to give up the modern freedoms we enjoy today.

Still, most would agree that as a generation, the Boomers took many otherwise positive trends to unhealthy excesses, ranging from the drug and music culture they fostered in the 1960s and 70s to the “keeping up with the Joneses” materialism of the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s.  

These excesses will no doubt breed resentment from more reserved generations, like Gen X.   This brings us to Frederick Studemann’s FT editorial, “Thanks a bunch, you baby boomers.”  

Mr. Studemann — presumably one of  those more reserved Gen Xers — writes,

“As they kite -surf their way through their self-indulgent later years, the boomers exude the smug self-assurance of those who feel entitled to have it all….  This might all be just about bearable if they had not made such a mess of things.  Yes, freedom of the individual and personal fulfillment are undoubtedly laudable.  But my, did they come with a cost, as we now pick up the tab for decades of boomer debt-fueled, take-now-pay-later consumerism that has blighted economies and ravaged the planet.  Add to that the less measurable costs of an atomised, more self-obsessed  ’broken’ society and it makes for quite a clean-up job.”

We don’t advocate Mr. Studemann’s views (though we certainly don’t refute them either).  Our point here is simply that generational conflict is coming.  Young taxpayers today will grow increasingly bitter about paying higher taxes to support the retirement of the Baby Boomers.  They will resent the fact that their own retirement will likely be far less generous.  Meanwhile, the Boomers have every right to expect to receive what was promised them.  A deal is a deal, even if it bankrupts the country.  

The political and ideological debate today is defined by two major conflicts: social conservatism vs. social liberality and government control vs. free market.  We believe that age might be the defining political conflict in the decades ahead.