Blaming the "Baby Boomers" As the age war replaced class war?

 

As one of the post-war generation growing up in the 1950s, nobody identified as a "baby boomer" or even used the term. These terms and concepts have been coined by sociologists, journalists, advertising men and generational theorists for their own purposes. The first recorded use of "baby boomer" is said to have be in January 1963 when it was used in a Daily Press article by Leslie J. Nason. He was specifically referring to a "tidal wave of college enrollments."

The term 'Generation X' has been attributed to a book of that name written by June Deverson and Charles Hamblett. Billy Idol, named a band after it. A Canadian journalist called Douglas Coupland is said to have popularized the term. In 1991, the authors Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote 'Generations' which included a discussion about another category called ' Millennials'.

All these catchy terms are used to categorise certain age groups and to try and depict certain historical social trends. I suppose it stems from our need as humans to understand and make sense of the social world in which we live and which we call history. But these classifications are also used in advertising to market consumer products.

Another way of categorising people is by 'social class' and socioeconomic status, which is still the master category for many sociologists and researchers. In a country like Britain, which always has been a very class-based stratified society, 'social class' is often derived from the occupation undertaken by a person and their income. But those that own the most wealth in any society are not necessarily those that earn the most, because they may live off shareholdings, capital and investment income, rather than work for an income. Social class is a useful tool and concept because it looks at how income, wealth, education, social connections and school, determine to a large extent social outcomes and perpetuate an intergenerational elite. For example, only around 7% of the UK population have ever attended a 'public school' or what the Americans more rightly call a private school. Yet, the former pupils of these schools occupy some of the most senior positions in British society. They are to be found in the higher echelons of the legal profession, politics, media and journalism. One school in particular, Eton College, has produced more British prime ministers than any other.

One of those old Etonians, was the former Tory prime minister, David Cameron, who gave us 'Brexit'. He would have us believe that he's got on in life by having 'sharp elbows'. He said he wanted to be the British prime minister because he thought he'd be "rather good at it." He was rather bad at it. He had to resign when he lost the E.U. referendum vote in 2016 which he called for reasons of political expediency. Cameron owes most of his success in life to the social class he was born into and to marriage. Cameron's mother-in-law, Lady Astor, pulled strings to get him a job at Carlton TV where he was director of corporate affairs for seven years. Lady Astor was a personal friend of Michael Green, the then executive chairman of Carlton. She suggested that he hire Cameron and Green complied. According to the Guardian newspaper, he was recruited on a salary of £90,000 a year. It's also claimed that Cameron landed a job with the Conservative Party in 1988, when he was 21, after someone claiming to be from Buckingham Palace, also pulled strings for him.

In one sense, you can't blame Cameron for using his class social connections to get on in life, but he really ought to be a lot more honest about it. As we say in Britain, it's not what you know but who you know, that matters.

It's easy to blame an older generation for the misfortunes of a younger generation, but this is just socially divisive, lazy thinking and wrong. It detracts from the real causes. Government policies which have led to greater inequality and more precarious employment for younger people, are more to blame. I saw the rot set in during the 1980s when it became far more difficult to get work and unemployment increased to 3 million under Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1983. There was also more deindustrialization, outsourcing of jobs abroad and privatizations. Thatcher's employment policies paved the way for zero-hour contracts and the gig economy.

The thirty or so years after WWII, are seen as the golden age of modern capitalism and welfarism. There was economic growth after the war in many western European countries and in America. This led to full employment, more opportunities, access to housing and a better standard of living for many people who are now called the "baby boomers." When I left school in 1970, it wasn't difficult to get a job or an apprenticeship, or to access higher grant-funded education. All that changed with the election of the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher in 1979.