Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post
I was at an event recently where several top business executives were perplexed about whyAmericans under 40 are so disillusioned with capitalism. What could they do to restore trust in our economic system?
My suggestion was simple: Treat workers better. This wasn’t the answer they wanted. Many rushed to tell me how generous their pay raises have been, how easy it is to go from an entry-level job to management at their company, and how they have diversified their workforce. These are all welcome efforts, but they miss the bigger picture. Young people in America have come of age during the Great Recession, the sluggish recovery that followed and then the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment has been 10 percent or higher twice in the past 15 years. Young workers have seen how expendable they are to […]
The headline in the article is misleading, and the article is superficial at best. The fact of the matter is that Americans under forty haven’t really experienced Capitalism. Why? Well, it would actually be helpful to look back at what was occurring 40-45 years ago when these children were born. And yes, it was the Reagan “revolution” where the economy was financialized, where unions were busted, where factories were closed, and production shipped to Korea, Japan, and then China, where the “contract” of corporate loyalty was broken, and these 40 something’s parents were laid off from well paying jobs which were never to return. We saw the increased rent seeking behavior of corporate America which adds costs to transactions but no value. Where increased regulation has made it increasingly prohibitive to start new enterprise due to State and Federal licensing requirements. ( You can’t even braid hair in New Jersey without a license from the State!). You would think that with the increasing dissatisfaction novel political choices would emerge, but even this has been forestalled by the elites. The Republicans talk a good Libertarian game but they are loathe to implement these policies, ( they are “capitalists” who don’t really believe in competition), and the Democrats actually believe they can “manage” the economy through even more energy sucking licensure and regulation, while both parties feed at the trough of the millionaires and billionaires.
The older a person is, the more change one has seen over the years. It has taken me 77 years to see the destruction of our so-called democracy. It looks and acts more like an OLIGARCHY, and no one can tell me it is different because I have experienced it first hand, and it is VERY obvious!