Millennials sure didn’t have it easy in 2013, and 2014 isn’t looking too much better. But one writer appears to have the answer to Generation Y’s problems, calling on young Americans in a Rolling Stone article to fight for five economic reforms that sure look, swim and quack like socialism.
The article, published in Rolling Stone’s first issue of 2014, outlines what author Jesse A. Myerson believes are economic reforms Millennials should be advocating for in the new year. But instead of pushing for a thriving economy that encourages innovation and advancement, Myerson encourages 18-to-29-year-olds to fight for a society that bears striking resemblance to socialism.
“Millennials have been especially hard-hit by the downturn, which is probably why so many people in this generation (like myself) regard capitalism with a level of suspicion that would have been unthinkable a decade ago,” Myerson wrote. “But that egalitarian impulse isn’t often accompanied by concrete proposals about how to get out of this catastrophe.”
The Rolling Stone writer then goes on to discuss things which, according to him, “blow:” unemployment, jobs — ironically — landlords, hoarders and Wall Street. But having a guaranteed job, money, land, redistributed assets and a public banking option, he writes, does not “blow,” and should be provided by the government. And these tenets, Myerson said, are something Millennials should fight for.
Beginning with “guaranteed work for everybody,” the Rolling Stone author writes about the importance of a job guarantee.
“The easiest and most direct solution is for the government to guarantee that everyone who wants to contribute productively to society is able to earn a decent living in the public sector,” Myerson writes.
But alas, he reasons, not everyone wants a job, because, after all, they do “blow.” Myerson floats the idea of a universal basic income, one that is prodded by the government and dropped into “everyone’s bank account every month.” The notion of “social security for everyone,” he writes, would make participation in the labor force completely voluntarily, “thereby enabling people to get a life.”
He fails, however, to address where the money to provide universal social security would come from — an important piece of information given the dwindling funds of the current not-so-universal system.
Myerson’s third tenet, “take back the land,” explores pesky landlords. According to him, landlords do little to contribute to the flourishing economy in which their building or land is located.
“So why don’t the community and the public derive the value and put it toward uses that benefit everyone?” he asks. “Because capitalism, is why.”
Instead, Myerson floats the idea of a land-value tax, which targets “wealthy real estate owners and their free rides.” Instituting such a fee would, he writes, combat both inequality and poverty.
“…we have to stop letting rich people pretend they privately own what nature provided everyone,” he argues.
Myerson goes on to assert that Millennials need to fight for a principle that makes “everything owned by everybody.” He discusses the “infamous one percent,” and encourages the government to buy up assets and redistribute them, in the form of dividends, to the masses.
The fifth tenet Myerson addresses is a public bank in every state. Doing so, he argues, would allow the public institution to offer cheap loans to farmers, students and businesses.
“If that idea — or any of the others described in this piece — sounds good to you, there’s a bitter political struggle to be waged,” he writes in closing. “Let’s get to work.”
Myerson is right: Millennials are facing a dismal economy, skyrocketing student loan debt and a rapidly growing national debt. Unemployment among Generation Y is more than double the national rate and student loan debt topped $1 trillion.
But he fails to address where all of the money for these five ideas is going to come from. Because eventually, as Margaret Thatcher once said, other people’s money runs out.
