Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.
From Socialism (1922). Thanks Mises.ca
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It’s more disillusionment then revolution that’s happening, me and the rest my age are barred from status quo and networks; so we’re making our own. Agorism is booming right now, that’s a big reason why the USSA youth isn’t rioting, the econony is fine but the command economy is dying.
The youth is just side stepping the state, its wonderful and once the college fantasy diddle land explodes their ranks will grow into the new norm, good luck taxing this generation.
@Luc – glad to hear young people are side stepping the state where you live.
But where I’m from (the EU), college students and recent graduates, both employed and unemployed, overwhelmingly blame “laissez faire” for unemployment and dream of utopian societies that do away with “imposed scarcity”. They support the inevitable riots when austerity measures threaten to make cuts in the social security system that is in their eyes the envy of the world. And they loudly clamor for more and “better” regulation, maximum prices, minimum wages and protectionism while demonizing “the purely economic outlook” (whatever that means), “consumerism” and the “free market fetish” of the US.
A recent graduate myself, I have so little faith in the future of my country that I am moving to the UK soon where, I hope, at least there will be an alternative movement of some sorts which deviates from the statist quo
Good luck on that. Britain is a few steps ahead of us when it comes to disillusioned youth.
Come to Australia – it is nowhere near as interventionist as the EU (or the USA), and yet there is a large and growing opposition to interventionism. Until 4 years ago the government was not in debt at all. The centre-left government responsible for the debt it has now will be utterly destroyed in the next election.
And the ‘purely economic outlook’ comment looks like something from Karl Polanyi.
Capitalism: Hong Kong unemployment falls to 13-year low
Socialism: Gallup Finds U.S. Underemployment Stuck at 18.5% in Mid-Sept.
I use the Gallup numbers because they are more conservative than the Shadow Stats unemployment number of 22.8%
But the official unemployment stat is only 9.1%
So it can’t be all that bad. Right?
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