PowerSwitch

But these high-profile movements may just be masking a broader shift: according to analysis of the definitive British Social Attitudes survey (from 1983-2010), today's young adults are less supportive of the NHS than their parents were, are less likely to favour higher benefits – despite being far more likely than their elders to be unemployed – and feel less connection to society at large than previous generations.

Has Britain raised a new "heartless" generation of children of Thatcher – and, arguably, of Tony Blair? Does this mark the slow death of solidarity? Or has the received wisdom on the imagined journey through life, from hot-headed radical to self-satisfied reactionary, never been all that true?

Guardian/ICM poll is only the latest piece of evidence suggesting that the left's defining value of solidarity is in considerably shorter supply among the young than the old. A rising generation that finds college expensive, work hard to come by and buying a home an impossible dream is responding to its plight, not by imagining any collective fightback, but by plotting individual escape.

The desolate atomisation of what we might dub "generation self" – today's twentysomethings – poses a profound challenge for the left over the distant horizon. But it is not a challenge that shows up yet in the headline figures for voting intention, where pensioners remain considerably more conservative and everyone else's propensity to put a cross in the Tory box remains much of a muchness. Rather, the staunch individualism of the young emerges when they are probed about deeper attitudes. This even manifests in areas like the welfare state, despite young people being far more likely than their older compatriots to be unemployed.

A full 48% of 18- 24-year-olds, and 46% of 25- 34-year-olds disagreed with a statement suggesting that most unemployed people receiving benefits were "for the most part unlucky rather than lazy" – almost twice as many as in the over-65s group, where only 25% disagreed with the statement.

That gulf on welfare between the age gaps is a strong one: even despite the relatively small samples of each age group, the gap was easily big enough to be statistically significant.

Attitudes on a few other issues also showed a split, albeit not quite so stark: 24% of 18- 24-year-olds disagreed that it's important to get to know your neighbours, versus just 11% of over-65s. Younger people were also more likely to disagree that they were proud to be British, although an overwhelming majority at all age groups express patriotism.

Not everything points towards the young rejecting Britain's traditional social democratic settlement. Young people were at least as likely as their older counterparts to oppose richer people opting out of the NHS (though a majority of respondents at all ages thought this was fine), and did support redistribution of wealth from the richer to poorer – though (as we will see later) perhaps not quite as strongly as their parents did at their age.

The generational shift in attitude towards benefits is perhaps the most frightening shift for advocates of the welfare state – and it is not a mere blip of one opinion poll. According to the long-running British Social Attitudes survey, today more than half of British people think unemployment benefits are too high – versus just over a third in the Thatcher era.

One man who might be said to epitomise Britain's individualistic new generation is Sam Bowman, the 24-year-old research director of the free-market Adam Smith Institute, who sees the shift as one caused by a new cosmopolitanism, brought on by the internet. "People our age are much more cosmopolitan," he says. "A 23- or 24-year-old Londoner is more likely to be concerned about Mumbai than Newcastle – we're much less interested in national boundaries: the internet lets you speak to people who you share interests with, wherever they live. Geographical unity is fine, but I think most people prefer the unity and friendship that comes from shared interests. We get to do that now."

Bowman theorises this "cosmopolitan outreach" could serve as a replacement for an emotional connection to the state. Borrowing a phrase from the economist Daniel Klein, he says: "The NHS has been described as 'the People's Romance': virtuous not because it's the best, but because we're all involved – it's unifying. In another generation, that role might have belonged to the army. It makes sense in this modern world that people are becoming less interested in these national institutions."

stevecook172001 wrote:I think it comes down to a complex interaction of underlying cultural and economic imperatives, each feeding back on the other. We are a nation of small-minded small-c conservatives for a whole host of historical reasons. What this generally means is that we have tended to put up with a lot of shit from our elites with little more than a severe moan. Where we go from here is anyone's guess. But, I may as well make my own guess, I suppose. I think that, as times get tougher, we will see more people getting hotter under the collar and more riots kicking off in our inner cities. That much will be a given across much of the world. In the UK, this will push the general population in two directions; extreme and unambiguous left versus vague and ambiguous right. Given our history, I mentioned above, I suspect the right will have a small but significant advantage. In short, we'll sort of muddle our way towards a kind of pen-pushing, bland and terrifying fascist bureaucracy of the George Orwell variety. Hell, we're half way there already. Orwell understood our cultural psyche only too well.

Compare the above to the rest of the European continent and I think we will see a much clearer picture there. Many European countries will unambiguously go all-out socialist or all-out fascist. If that happens, I'll be emigrating to Europe (if they haven't already closed their borders by that point). I mean it. I'd rather grow old and die a poor socialist than a poor capitalist.

jonny2mad wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:I think it comes down to a complex interaction of underlying cultural and economic imperatives, each feeding back on the other. We are a nation of small-minded small-c conservatives for a whole host of historical reasons. What this generally means is that we have tended to put up with a lot of shit from our elites with little more than a severe moan. Where we go from here is anyone's guess. But, I may as well make my own guess, I suppose. I think that, as times get tougher, we will see more people getting hotter under the collar and more riots kicking off in our inner cities. That much will be a given across much of the world. In the UK, this will push the general population in two directions; extreme and unambiguous left versus vague and ambiguous right. Given our history, I mentioned above, I suspect the right will have a small but significant advantage. In short, we'll sort of muddle our way towards a kind of pen-pushing, bland and terrifying fascist bureaucracy of the George Orwell variety. Hell, we're half way there already. Orwell understood our cultural psyche only too well.

Compare the above to the rest of the European continent and I think we will see a much clearer picture there. Many European countries will unambiguously go all-out socialist or all-out fascist. If that happens, I'll be emigrating to Europe (if they haven't already closed their borders by that point). I mean it. I'd rather grow old and die a poor socialist than a poor capitalist.

Would you grow old at all as a poor socialist , my guess is your going to have mass migrations the sort of thing that hasn’t been seen since the Huns and every socialist country every universalist will be overrun .

If you have a collapse situation you need groups with a clear in group out group, xenophobic and ruthless, this isn’t me saying these are things I want, I'm just saying what I think you need to survive.

I've said before read camp of the saints, it’s not a good book maybe because it wasn’t originally written in English maybe because in just not well written, but it shows our major weakness that will destroy all of the west.

Anyway I don't see any hope for any organisation above a tribe or maybe a city state surviving collapse anywhere in Europe, mainly because of over stretch.

As for the young moving to the right I don’t actually see it but most of my friends seem to be on the left and are totally clueless.
I don’t have any hope any of them will change, maybe the generation after them may get it, the ones who survive will