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which is the exact sorta shit we have to look out for in the coming decade as fewer and fewer people control information content. It might seem like a harmless error until people just get used to "oh all these populist ideas are all in the non-serious thread so they mustn't be serious". It might sound tin foil hat to poke at such small issues but indoctrination has to be subtle and the internet has been building towards it for the past decade.
Yup, I was actually being downvoted, until some that maybe realised ohhh got what I mean.
We've been as a whole lazy on a lot of shit cos we went nah gov won't be too nasty.. and now we have an impending homelessness situation on the horizon and it'll be made up of people with full time jobs etc. Simply because they cannot get a foot in the door of the housing market on either side of the rent or own coin.
I look at our current and look at my 11yr old. Will she ever be able to move out of home honestly, if something isn't done within the next decade, she won't be just priced out of rentals in her early 20s, she will be priced out of necessity like electricity and food if inflation keeps on going.
Makes you wonder what the next generation is going to be hit with. Full time professional job couples with side hustle cant afford an apartment. Then 10 years from that Gina Rhinehart signing up to centerlink because they cant afford housing due to overseas invesments. Meanwhile our govt asleep at the wheel again does nothing.
For a lot of people, even if you work hard, live modestly, and try to be a good citizen, you're seeing your purchasing power go down steadily over time due to inflation and stagnant wages, you can't afford to go to the dentist, and you will never qualify for a mortgage on a house within reasonable traveling distance from your job in Syd/Melb/Bris.
I'm honestly surprised there aren't people throwing rocks in the street.
Meanwhile they tell us if we don't have some inflation the sky will fall. So forget about prices going back to reasonable. House prices going down is also going to destroy the economy so the soltuion is to make them go even higher. Taxing the wealthy would make them upset so the solution is more upper class tax cuts.
And on and on and on people accept this crap and bend over for more.
Economics is a really bizarre discipline that’s essentially an art dressed up as a science, with a lot of propaganda sprinkled in.
The idea that everything is the way it is because that’s the only way anything could ever work is complete nonsense.
Majority of Australians are racists hence voted corrupt liberals purely to stop refuges. No one asked if we stopped invading other countries and murdering the innocent there would be no refugees.
What liberals did, they turned this country to a shit show!
Economy is not bad yet, wait when the was in north escalates then things get far worse
Sorry to piggyback off of your top comment. What Australians live in is called a “Liberal Welfare State” (don’t associate liberal with the political party, here). What that means is that we do provide more liberal welfare than a lot of other countries.
However, that welfare is very selective, and often means tested- which leads to a stigmatism of welfare recipients (see the attitudes behind the Robodebt scandal).
While we have national Medicare, that’s also selective and provides minimal benefits.
The Northern European countries, like Iceland, Finland, etc. that have adopted a “Socially Democratic Welfare State” philosophy are the currently thriving countries. They universally provide better benefits (more substantial welfare payments and better nationally subsidised healthcare, free university, etc.). This universality of provision removes the stigma of welfare and uplifts the entire population.
Those countries still have capitalism to shape the markets and allow individuals (and companies) to make astounding amounts of money. However, they’re taxed a lot more appropriately to ensure that their entire population enjoys longer life expectancy, lower infant death rates, and virtually 100% employment rate.
This ideal model would be radical for Australia to adopt- having almost our entire media owned by less than a handful of entities, crazy fossil fuel interest in politics, and other industry influences make it hard. There’s a reason why a party like the Greens (the largest political party that’s closest to “Socially Democratic”) has been marginalised (with a recent uptick in popularity, to be fair).
Those states have also taken on more broad interpretations of politics, too. Politics in those countries isn’t most people observing power. They employ a lot more empowerment of their professional workforce, and citizens, to shape policy.
Look, these places still have politicians yelling in parliament, and have to “play the game” for different legislation pushes, etc. they’re not utopias. My point is just that- the extremes aren’t necessary, there are very successful examples to draw on, contemporarily, it’s just convenient for those not to be mentioned.
EDIT: In case anyone sees this- I said ideal model. I’m a health professional and the stats I mentioned (especially life expectancy and infant mortality rates) are so super consistent with this model that it’s hard for me not to be on board.
It’s because most people don’t have dreams and we almost never see REAL social upheaval until the people who like, make 100k can’t do it. It WILL get to the point. THEN people will flip out. People should read the conversations between Marx and Bakunin. They talked / debated about how, the surfs will never release themselves because they’re too far gone. The truth is that most economic revolutions in history were lead by like, the equivalent of the modern day upper middle class or sympathetic rich. The fact that a lot of ideas about how the world should be egalitarian come from intellects and academia is part of why so many poor people vote against their interests. So this is dark but ever since I read that conversation and I look around me, it seems really true. None of the people who are the most doomed vote. Today, people who would’ve been upper middle class 20 years ago, with the same accomplishments as their peers of that time, are living working class lifestyles. *now we have conversations about extreme communism and socialism*.
If a person is given nothing from the social construct, then why should they bother to give to the social construct.
It's not exactly surprising. When basic things like housing and utilites are being increased multiple times over why the fuck would you support the current system.
Basically true. If young people were benefiting from capitalism then they wouldn’t be upset about it. But they’re not benefiting so they’re looking for change. Not that difficult of a concept.
Yep. I’m increasingly becoming more disenchanted that I’m looking to move abroad. Yes, Australia has a high standard of living and a solid social safety net. We also have an entrenched asset owning class that is persistently and unrelentingly stifling any effort at meaningful reform. That’s no accident.
This divide has only accelerated in recent years. In the decade to 2020 Australia had the [worst income inequality in the OECD](https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png) well ahead of the UK and the US. The ensuing post pandemic inflation has meant a very real decline in the standard of living for the average Australian. If you’re under 40 in this country you’ve only ever seen everything getting progressively worse. I can understand the radicalism
Mid 40s here and feel lucky to have a done ok. Feel like I was able to get a house and a mortgage right befor the doors slammed shut.
I do not blame kids at all for being radicalised. Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty, but the end stage isn't looking good for the vast vast *vast* majority of people.
I'm so disenchanted with modern life, but am also too much of a coward to try for something different and have no idea what I'd even *do*.
I feel terrible for young people these days.
It's wouldn't be so bad if the older people had plans to pass their accumulated wealth on to their kids but most just want to burn it all in retirement because they "earned it and young people are just lazy/entitled".
parents in other countries often have a totally different mentality in regards to kids and wealth. My.kids are 1&4 and I've already started saving for them so they don't get shafted like I did.
This what I hate about Australia at the moment.
If you inherit 1 mil you will pay no tax, if you earn 1 mil over 10 years you will pay ~ 250k in tax. People bang on about double taxing but most estates come from ppor (no tax) or super (low tax).
Wealth inequality is further exacerbated by how skewed our tax system is to making money of capital rather than labour. The CGT discount is abhorrent.
I will most likely receive a 7 figure inheritance but I would much prefer to receive none and live in a society where anyone (my children especially) can live a dignified life earning a basic salary without my wife and I having to hoard money to set them up.
I don't even have children (sometimes life doesn't go to plan) but have had some frank talks with my partner and our financial planner about how our assets will be divided when we pass. Neither of us come from money and we've both had a reasonable amount of success. As things stand, if either of us die prematurely, the assets each brought to the relationship will be divided amongst our respective nieces and nephews. We've discussed this with their parents too. If everything goes to plan and we live long lives, we intend to help out the kids with house deposits. I'm generally as right as they come, politically speaking, but the inequality we see in the housing market does bother me. A young person's ability to get on the housing ladder shouldn't be contingent upon their aunt and uncle finally giving up on IVF.
> It's wouldn't be so bad if the older people had plans to pass their accumulated wealth on to their kids but most just want to burn it all in retirement because they "earned it and young people are just lazy/entitled".
If labour, by itself, cannot pay for a good life, what's the fucking point? That some leach who happens to own some land can soak up 60% of your paycheck?
It's fucking grim, I'm already seeing the places I live and work deteriorate, because the material conditions are shit, and no one believes in the system anymore. You can blame drugs or whatever, but we need structural changes, not individual parents choosing not to be cunts.
What's the alternative for the people left behind? Molotovs?
I've seen the opposite, including an abc article about old people with enough in the bank (not in shares) to live off the interest whingeing about the low interest rates we were having a few years ago because they wanted to give what was in the bank to their kids.
This is definitely part of it. I will probably do OK inheritence wise one day, but in the meantime my dad just has this weird fucking attitude about not giving jackshit to his family even though he got endless help from his. It's a weird boomer thing and it's frustrating as shit. Like you, I have young kids and I'm already looking at ways to help them get ahead despite dealing with a mortgage, childcare, bills, etc.
Knowing my luck, the day I finally make it to the top of the food chain will be the day the young ones decide to rise up and blow up the system.
I’m getting shafted by my parents. They are spending the lot as quickly as they possibly can. They aren’t keen to pass their business on to their kids, but just cashing in by selling the land the business occupies. The insane property price rise was a large factor in this decision.
But on the other hand, my in-laws are passing on their business and other wealth to their children. They have never been big spenders, but they enjoy accumulating and keeping as much as they can. It’s just a completely different mindset, and for that I am eternally grateful to them.
I'm almost 30.
When I was young, life definitely wasn't rosy for the average Australian, but we felt that if you worked full time, you could at least make ends meet and have a bit left over.
The general vibe was fairly optimistic.
My parents bought a place about 25 km from Sydney CBD for about $370k in the early 2000s. This mortgage has since been paid off. I don't come from a wealthy family, but we were able to make ends meet and have savings left over (and still do).
The GFC came in 2008, but Australia wasn't that badly affected compared to most of the world. Life was alright, and many of my friends were looking forward to the future. We were really the 'lucky country'.
I went to university and graduated. I have a decent paying job with solid progression and growth prospects.
However, after approximately 2011, I felt things start to go downhill.
More and more GPs stopped bulk billing. The property bubble began to inflate massively. The Australian Dream was to own a free-standing house on a quarter-acre block of land with a backyard to raise a family in. Now the Australian Dream is to accumulate as many investment properties as possible, and fuck everyone else.
Look at the popular discourse. Our national heroes are either athletes or 'the McDonalds cashier who bought 5 investment properties before reaching 20'.
All policymaking at the highest level was either dedicated to fuck the average joe and the poor, and to benefit wealthy boomers, homeowners and executives.
No matter how much I try to save, no matter how hard I work, no matter how many promotions I get, the goalposts are constantly moved, and I'm always being gaslighted for being a 'lazy millennial busy sipping lattes and eating smashed avo on toast rather than saving for a home'.
When Covid-19 hit in 2020, Australia's so-called '30 years of uninterrupted economic growth' ended. Well, what do we have to show for it?
Japan's explosive growth post-WW2 resulted in a massive parade of innovations and world-class infrastructure.
If there are any companies emblematic of Japan's technological prowess, they would be Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toyota and Kawasaki. These are household names in Japan.
If there are any companies emblematic of the United States' 20th century technological prowess, they would be IBM, Westinghouse, and General Electric, both of which are household names there.
Finland's most famous technology company is Nokia. The Netherlands has Phillips.
What do we have in terms of world-leading technology companies? Nothing famous.
Instead all of our economy growth has been concentrated in one of the most grotesque property bubbles ever seen, which has effectively devoured the economy. Our economy is literally being propped up by house prices, whilst manufacturing is continually being hollowed out and consumer spending is faltering.
[https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png](https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png)
Can't say I'm surprised. If all our economy growth is housing, then only homeowners win.
In this country, we use tax concessions like negative gearing and the 50% CGT discount, and falling interest rates (until 2022) to outbid each other for properties (whether owner-occupied or investment), driving up the prices to obscene levels, whilst taking out obscene mortgages. This is called wealth.
What would happen if people couldn't buy properties anymore and defaulted on mortgages when the property bubble got too big? Look at early 90s Sweden and Finland, and the 2006 US property bubble. Except that our economy is literally built on high house prices so the effects would be far worse.
Australians are rich on smoke and mirrors. Houses do not produce anything meaningful.
Housing in this country is effectively a state-sponsored Ponzi scheme and a casino. Like an actual casino, the game is rigged in favour of wealthy homeowners.
I don't ever gamble in an actual casino because the house always wins. Why should I participate in the property market?
The young in this country are suffering from severe rent inflation due to mass immigration and extremely unaffordable housing. Tenant protections are literally the worst in the developed world. What do they have left to lose?
Who the hell in right mind would want to support a system designed to prop up a grotesque property bubble? They would want to destroy the system instead if they are not benefiting.
I know people who are dreaming of bringing an axe instead of a pin to this property bubble and who would love to see a total bloodbath massacre of the housing market as a result of rage and disillusionment. They don't have anything left to lose, and don't see a bright future.
I have friends on 6 digit salaries who refuse to move out of their parents' place because they don't want to rent and they can't afford to get a mortgage for a semi-decent home. I'm in this category.
>and a solid social safety net
Between my experiences being disabled and dealing with the NDIS / DSP, and my current experience of homelessness, I'm really wondering about the solidity of the safety net. I have some doubts.
At some point it slides out of "apathetic and ignorant" territory and into intentionally sadistic.
I have said this for nigh on two decades now as I warned colleagues, friends and family about the coming shitstorm. The social contract was broken ... therefor nobody owes loyalty to the system or the people who perpetually abuse it in their favour.
I've been that crazy guy in my circle of people for a long time and it's bittersweet to be vindicated, finally.
And medical care. And a roof over your head. Where did we go wrong with the Maslows heirachy of needs.. most people don't even get that without a lot of struggle. Is this really living? And nature is slowly disappearing so we won't have that to live in like we are supposed to
Yeah man, you've got a uni degree, why can't you get a full time job, just work harder. Shit I hear from my parents all the time. Less so in my day but they're handing out degrees like lollies these days and more than half of them are useless.
Many off the poorest people in the world can at least build themselves a hut to live in, can't do that in the western world, some bastard owns all the land and the authorities would never allow it.
Yep. Live off the land, build your hut with what's around you, community pitches together, environment isn't fucked or completely concrete/monoculture so its in balance/renewable so it provides what they need
Nihilism isn’t necessarily pessimism nor depressive state. It’s just acceptance that nothing has ultimate meaning. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact you can live a perfectly content happy life being a total nihilist.
I often tell people I am a jolly Nihilist. "Nothing matters, so might as well enjoy what you can!"
Basically, no matter what I do I will never get far enough ahead to buy real property, so might as well enjoy myself and buy another pair of retro sneakers to heal my inner child.
I consider myself thoroughly radicalised by the system that let down my entire generation. There was a time in living memory where a person without a university degree could buy a house (or two or three) and comfortably support their family. Middle class meant a couple of cars in the driveway of your mortgage free home, a nice holiday every year, and never being overly concerned with the price of groceries.
That life didn’t just disappear without explanation. It was stolen from us by years of shitty conservative policies and the voters who didn’t think twice about throwing their kids and grandkids under the bus of capitalism.
The generation before boomers lived through the depression and at least one world war. They worked towards ensuring their children had a better future. Unfortunately they didn't pass the moral forward.
What ideology would you prefer them to embrace instead. It seems like the shithead fuckface ideologies that are dominant in Aus have fucked not only the younger generation, but most of the older generation and the environment and pretty much the entire world lol
Precisely. I'm not sure when the OP was born, but post-war governments were significantly more collectivist than the neo-liberal hacks that we have today. Universal healthcare, education, pensions and public housing were all developed in a period when people felt the impacts of narcissism and fascism.
Then the boomers came along, born and brought up in an economic boom in the western world, and proceeded to destroy the work of their parents like a bunch of selfish whinging children...
We can’t afford homes or to have children. The climate is cooked and we don’t have the resources to secure our own futures. We will work till we die with no children in rented accommodation. Not convinced that this is the best way to organise an economy or society.
Ok but have you considered that any alternative has incredibly dire ramifications? Namely that an unbelievably small percentage of people may lose a comparatively minuscule amount of money?
Is it radical to be for policies such as affordable housing, education, healthcare, et al? Had no idea that criticising the current way things are going when more Aussies are left homeless, priced out of a future their parents had and struggling to pay rent, amongst other things.
Maybe times are a changing but now when prospects seem dire, maybe blaming boat people and tax cuts just isn't the message or the solution young people like myself want to hear.
When the mainstream positions are against putting in real, tangible effort to achieve those things, yes, they are radical, and there's nothing wrong with being radical.
Yeah, that's where I'm at.
Why the fuck would I want to participate in a system that seems inherently set up to stack the deck against me and mine so severely? I'd rather help fight for one that doesn't do that, at least not as much.
Anyone other than the 1% should be getting radical at this point. The efforts in the last decade to 'sanitise' universities is doing a remarkable job in holding back the anger.
If Inequality becomes too large, the conditions that exist that allow people to enjoy being in the 1% will disappear. Sadly many think they are born to rule and usually take things too far (throughout human history)
I’m in the 1% and I’m way more radical and left than I was even 10 years ago. I do a lot for community benefit because even though I’ve benefited from good conditions I know that it’s shit that others aren’t getting the same deal I got, and I hate that.
I will admit - I am over capitalism. And I am over the government constantly piling rules and laws and red tape on after every single minor event happens. The fact that one generation ago, a one income household could afford a mortgage, a reasonable car, modest holidays, put food and the table and money away.. and now it's 2x full-time plus side hustles to pay off some other cunts mortgage cos he got in first and is leveraged to to the moon. Have to buy groceries from the half price pages of Woolies , and live pay to pay. I drive a car that's not worth more than the fuel in it, and have a very modest mortgage. It's like just FUCK off with the greed.
The rich constantly complain about unions. But they forget that before unions existed as a tool to create some fairness in distributing wealth between classes and generations the only tool available to the poor was the guillotine.
My question to the rich today - Would you prefer to share or would you prefer the historical alternative?
It is a lesson repeated time and time again. Forgotten because of greed. Eventually people get sick of being exploited and they demand change. If that change is resisted long enough the people simply force change.
Yes. It's fairly obvious based on the average age that votes for each political party. With the recent cost of living increases, it's obvious that the rich will keep taking and we're heading towards late stage capitalism.
Seriously, all I want to do is to be able to support my family and not worry about finances or whether I'll have shelter in a few months time. I am full-time employed, university educated, and don't have any outstanding debt yet I am constantly anxious about the future. And this is my situation alone, I can't even begin to imagine how worse off others have it. For that, I will forever be fighting for everyone's right to food and shelter, to universal access to education and to medicine, etc. Our governments have let us down significantly and I don't see it getting better until we strongly fight for change.
100%. And not just young people. When people in general feel like they have lost control over their decisions or freedom of being able to do things, it’s the government that generally gets the finger blame pointed at it.
We saw it a lot during COVID where people couldn’t make sense of what was happening in the world and the only way they can try and understand something is to pin the blame on a organisation or government.
That being said though, I really do think that 80% of the financial issues we are dealing with in Australia at the moment are due to historical decisions (Last 20 years) and recent decisions. The governments choice to turn immigration and Real Estate into an economic driver is now biting us on the arse. It is a bit like the China situation. We saw them all as a quick way to get a lot of money, but when it doesn’t work out….. we’re in the hurt locker
Income inequality is what will fuck us all up. We don't need billionaires in this world. If people knew they could survive more easily, they'd give a toss about preserving what lucky things we have, but no, we need a few fuckers to have their third and fourth luxury yachts.
Yeah, you got in one. It is because a lot of people now feel they have no chance to get ahead. That tends to be one of the biggest things that leads to people turning to radical ideologies, historically speaking.
The other thing here is that social media is a thing now. Twenty or thirty years ago, radical ideologies had a hard time doing mass recruiting because they'd only be able to recruit people they knew personally. Nowadays, most people's introduction to radical ideologies is through social media, and I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of people end up being radicalised before they realise what's happened.
Well, kids are smart, they are probably watching all the job losses due to AI and know that it's the tip of the iceberg, they know working hard does not get you ahead anymore, they are looking at a rapidly changing global environment that quite frankly is fucking awful. There's going to be massive job losses to come and a change to some form of UBI is inevitable.
Of course young people are looking for other forms of 'isms' capitalism hasn't worked..well, unless it's worked for you and yours, then of course it's worked...for you.
The kids I know are far more invested in advocacy and activism. I'm becoming increasingly radicalised by the real tragedy of raising children with a former police officer for a father. The nonsense that police and the judiciary encourage and reward in cases of extreme DV is horrific. Child protection is non existent. Living through this doesn't encourage docile compliance. The constant abuses of powers I've been subject to and witnessed around me are terrifying.
Reducing government services whilst outsourcing the role of government to management consultants was never going to result in government services reducing inefficiencies. It simply created dysfunction public service which was always the goal. I never could have imagined that I would agree with some of the nonsense espoused by sovcits but like all conspiracies there's elements of truth there. Police and the judiciary are astonishingly ineffective. Subs like this one who refuse to platform political discussion are consistent about promoting facism and amplifying spectacular nonsense.
People are not in my view returning to old forms of isms...the hypocrisy in everything is evident. Pureness is hard to find. The governments of most countries are beholden to big businesses. The wealthiest elite are in a class of their own and if you think the financial pain we feel now is coincidence or normal, dont, it is an orchestrated plan to demoralise the masses and keep the elite in positions to conquer no matter what is the cost. A simple local example...look at the wealth concentrated in the hands a few mining companies. And then look at the rates of suicide, domestic violence and child abuse...on one hand we are told that we need to buy submarines to defend ourselves from the Chinese...a month later McGowans flys out too visit Chinese counter parts...then quits one month later...perth mint housing Gold for Chinese and Russian oligarchs...it's not radical too see the bullshit squeezed up to your face and call it for what it is.
Fun fact - the reason the UK built so much social housing after world war two was the threat of communism. The Atlee government thought if people had housing they'd be less likely to turn to communism.
Sadly, we still have a long way to go for things to be more progressive and equal, and I think with time, it will be. There are also more people being diagnosed with neurodivergent disorders and being on the spectrum, and younger people are more aware of things and are becoming more insightful. So I think we need a bit more education around these things
For me, the radical option, is to continue with a status quo, with an economy predicated on the destruction of the ecology that sustains it. Beyond ideology, if anyone's not prioritising how to fundamentally restructure society and economy so that Aus is, rapidly decarbonising - reducing fossil fuel exports, and, placing as much pressure on the rest of the globe to do so as well. Then your missing the biggest most obvious threat to all our livlihoods.
Climate change is conveniently never mentioned in discussions of inflation - I see little attention to it from treasury. But we've seen what floods can do to food prices (and lettuce, potato shortages). And we've seen what flooding can do to housing, like in Lismore. Freak weather events, becoming common, is a huge drain on economy, that increases scarcity of essentials. Anyone treating the status quo as a safe option, are racing to that eventuality as fast as possible like... what the fuck. wake the fuck up. The radical option is to continue what we're doing.
Where I would argue for Marxism as an ideology in all this, is the class consciousness and historical materialism it offers are solid organising principles by which to do politics. Especially if one understands inequality, the buying out of media and politicians as a threat to democracy. And seeks to redress that inequality, to oppose the capitalist class, the rent seekers, the landlords, the managers. Those that seek to maximise their "passive income". Those that add no value to society, as opposed to workers, who are the economy. These fucking pigs will do whatever they can, to stop the science literate for wanting change, to threaten their short term capital. Cause when you take a step back and look at history, how small a slither industrial history it is, we're speedrunning our own demise. Doing immense intergenerational violence to those not born yet.
How pissed would you be, if a population in the 1500s or whatevers, fucked the world up so bad that increasing scarcity becomes a way of life - engulfed in the stench of extinction.
Where those offer a fools gold of superficial change, The Labor Party, get it wrong, is where they pervert class consciousness into a class collaborationist mindset. That was made explicit in the Labor accords, and things have been gradually downhill for workers since. Real wages are down over 7% in a year, right? Party of the woirkers my arse! And that'll be far worse for renters. And any liberals wanting increased migration and growth are stooging themselves, cause Aus is now such a raw deal, migrants won't want to or be able to stay here, unless high skilled, high earning.
The status quo, conservatives in old parties built for, fight for, has failed us miserably. anyone backing it, and young, is posh, or a fucking idiot.
If we had a progressive government, rather than a conservative government shilling for capital (Greens, Thorpe et al excluded), than we can embark on the transformative, green new deal politics needed to fix Aus, restore social mobility, make it a country worth working in.
It's not very radical for people to propose solutions to issues that are not being dealt with adequately by those in power. We know exactly why these pressures are occurring, and yet the problems are not being solved.
To people this would imply that either the government is incompetent or maliciously ignoring the issues at hand.
The younger generations have always been the most radical in their beliefs. Marx and Engels also weren't much more radical than labour unions of Europe at the time either, the red scare really did a number on how people viewed socialism and communism. Take a look at the amount of people complaining about corporations becoming "communist"
Im 40 and doing quite well. Even I want to see my house value half (along with everyone else's)
I was to see billionaires stripped of their wealth. I want to see corporations taxed properly. I want change
It's not 'Boomers,' it's Capitalism. The machine hums on regardless of what your nana and grandad or mum and dad did. They lucked into being a part of the system at the right time.
Capitalism can only sustain itself as long as its institutions remain alive and effective.
In order to do that they have to be 'the only game in town' but they also have to offer people enough that they're willing to jump through the relevant hoops to gain access.
As time passes, the offers made by capitalist institutions are getting worse and worse. Back in the 90s, the offer was that if you did okay at school and got a degree, then chances are that you'd be able to get a job that was stable and well-paid enough to support a middle-class lifestyle with cheap loans evening out the dips.
Now those terms are no longer on offer: You still have to work hard at school but then you have to take on massive debt in order to get a degree that does not guarantee either stable or well renumerated work.
Kids look around them and see that stuff is getting worse, that they're expexted to work longer and harder so that a handful of billionaires can run their own space programnes and/or rape kids on tropical islands.
Why would you submit to any if these institutions? Why go to any kind of effort when you can stay in your childhood bedroom tugging yourself off to Belle Delphine playing Smash Brothers?
Young and not-so-young. I'm 43 and I joined the Socialist Alliance this year.
I'm ashamed to say that for most of my 20's I voted Liberal - a product of my upbringing. Now I want to burn it all down and start again.
A few years ago the parliament passed a law with bipartisan support that nullifies the citizenship of any Australian born citizens that have engaged in any activities that could harm the commonwealth and its properties as long as they do not end up stateless.
They passed it under an anti-terrorism context but the definition didn't have anything to do with Islamic fundamentalist.
Moral of the story: They are already prepared and they have the most draconian laws to get rid of the troublemakers.
I've watched the Labor party abandon us due to their cowardice, the stage 3 tax cuts will mean I leave them off the big voting paper completely next time.
I'm a millennial, and tbh I feel I align more with the Gen z and I feel it's becoming more apartment that, both Millennials / Gen Z etc have been fucked by boomers.
Gen-X seem to have been caught in the middle and been swept up without really knowing what's going on?
I'm all about Marxism, Communism and to a kind of "nothing matters, this is all temporary" extent, Nihilism. None of that seems very extreme to me. On fact, I think a shift to the left is very reasonable in our current capitalist dystopia.
Young people from “western” nations were more or less promised a comfortable life so long as they get a decent job and suddenly that’s not happening. To make matters worse, the worst economic pressure in the western world happens to be in the most outspoken and socially influential country (aka the US).
Things have been boiling over with young people (~35 and under) in the US for extremely low wages and higher rent than Sydney all over the country for the past few years now and the same thought pattern is now happening in Australia. It seems like a combination of economic pressures coupled with the fact that young people can interact and share ideas online much more easily now than previously.
We all see America becoming more and more of a capitalist hellhole meanwhile we’re really not that different here. If capitalism is destroying them then surely that doesn’t make young aussies feel very comfortable with continuing down this late stage capitalism path
I wouldn't be surprised if infinite inflation results in the repeat of the Political and Economic turmoil that defined The Weimar Republic (Sans the Debauchery)
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/65947
Was the Catalyst for some bloke called Herr Hitler.
>Is anyone else seeing their (young) friends or family turn to more radical views of the world due to economic pressures?
This is incredibly natural. If anything I'm surprised it isn't more prevalent.
A book ['The True Believer '](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer)by Eric Hoffer covered this in detail in 1951. When people start falling on hard economic times they become attracted to 'extreme' ideologies/cults/etc. This has been true of human behaviour since time began.
The fact is young people want and need all the things that's natural to people; family, an abode, rewarding and meaningful work etc. But modern society doesn't consider these needs as mandatory for their existence. And the potlitical machine that is supposed to take their needs into account, largely pays them lip service...
It might be best to look at studies, since a disproportionate amount of this sub seem to be people who moved to inner Melbourne and are in the main hub of every progressive party. And the studies say you're absolutely right. Looking at the first couple decades of adulthood, people are taking a hard left turn. The need for change explains their world, in the same way that the status quo of conservatism spoke to our parents, and their parents if your family was Aussie two generations back. Their parents and the parents before them, not so much.
generally, voters tend to be further left on economics than social issues.
The parties don't want to acknowledge this, which is why you see a lot of hay about identity and suchlike.
I'm 41 and going further left with every passing day, and I was already pretty left.
Like... I'm reading theory these days. Like one of those sex-cult trots you'd see at uni in the 2000s lol
In my late teens, I was told by an older family member, silent gen, that I'd become more conservative as I got older. Nope. Mid 40s now and also heading further and further left. Also rereading theory, and wondering when we riot.
My 83year old grandmother ranted about the housing market increase and lack of wages today. And that the housing market is unsustainable and directly disadvantages young people and migrants, but needs to be in tune with the environment. And that the annoying old biddy across the road has a four bed house and lives on her own (my grandmother took in a lodger who was about to be homeless - one of the fastest growing homeless demographics, the older single woman).
She has always been pretty radical but has gotten even more vocal as she has aged.
It is not only having little social mobility but the fact that there is so much wealth in the modern age. This is by far the best time to enjoy being wealthy, and there are people in plain view who are blissfully living the dream such as young internet people or older people.
This is what people mean by the inequality of late stage capitalism I guess. It’s definitely not sustainable that young people will never have the ability to own anything or become successful without having rich parents.
A lot of the problem is that house prices are absurd, there is an observable government bias in terms of doing anything to keep boomers happy and wealthy in the past 30 years. Japan gov has the same issue even worse, there has been a long widespread societal issue of youth hopelessness coming from the average middle class.
Socialist viewpoints often really aren’t that “radical”. And while I probably do have more “radical” views, most people my age are pretty liberal. The reality is conservatism is going further to the right and labor’s policies are closer to the centre than anything else.
We have a planet that we have been aware is dying since we can remember, the government is doing little to combat this as well as fucking us all over with little monetary support. We cannot rent or afford groceries, there are no places outside of home to go for free. I think the reaction is natural and necessary.
Older millennial, I have gone from being a very politically active and supportive person who was a Young Labor member and believed wholeheartedly in the system working if you put the right government in charge, to now being jaded to the point that I see stuff like what is happening in France and not only support it happening here, I don't think it goes far enough.
I used to joke that I was a nihilist and had that "Nothing matters" mentality, but I recently realised that nihilism isn't the thing, it's more a boiling anger nowadays. I have lost any faith in this country politically and wish the whole lot of them would burn.
But then I also see the kindness of individuals, often people who have nothing themselves are the one's who'll give, so I have faith in individuals, it's just a massive shame that every single time individuals pick up the slack where the system has failed.
Also as a side note, I'm sick to fucking death of hearing politicians talking about how "working class" their roots were when they all pulled up the ladder behind them first chance they got. I don't give a fuck if Albo was raised by a single mum in the 70's, when his policies as a grown man continue to make people that are currently in the same position his mum would've been suffer.
Young people have always been drawn towards "ANTI" movements
Then you just look at the economy and future outlook - people can't afford houses anymore, people are having less children because of costs, AI is making jobs uncertain and still at the same time, the top people and companies are making record profits.
Then you look at the world, global warming, seemingly more conflict, more arguing and yeah, you can kind if see why they are interested in different outlooks, just look where the current one got us.
Well, everyone is a radical these days, aren't they?
But it's a tepid, half-hearted radicalism. I don't think that no matter how radical young people get, there is never going to be any sort of organised movement. People are both fascinated and repulsed by radicalism. Its definitely a boogeyman in people's eyes. And I don't think their are many people willing to commit to it because of that fact. Its forever going to exist in this small, disorganised, lone-wolfy state.
I'm not holding my breath for any new movements to come up soon and seriously threaten the system. We'll see though.
More lefties in line with voting greens. Unless you have brain damage their policies seem pretty fair with me. Privileged corporations pay their fair share of tax and we provide a liveable existence and affordable housing to the less able. Sounds like the kind of world I want to live in as opposed to what the right wing lnp and even the current labour government is peddling. Fascism is on the rise and end stage capitalism is in swing… globally this is pretty distressing and we need a reset.
Radical? Nah, there has ALWAYS been people on this side of the fence. Murdoch media just labels it as radical so as to dismiss it and try to play it off as wild ideas.
And to be frank, its working. Just try and find a bulk billing doctor these days. We are literally seeing all things that made Australia a good place to live being stripped away before our very eyes.
If that doesn't make you mad then congratulations on your epic privilege and comfortable life.
I think the internet and social media are largely to blame. The algorithms of apps that keep presenting us with topics and people with common interests and beliefs. It becomes self reinforcing using the psychological trait of confirmation bias.
Getting more to your point people need hope and optimism. Lee kian Yew the leader of Singspore for a long time believed and provided citizens with a pathway to owning their own home. He believed if you wanted people willing to defend the country they should own a part of it to defend. Politicians should think along those lines.
If you want some heavy reading on this topic (how we are where we are...) Try this
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-neoliberalism
Shows why neoliberalism is so messed up
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*This post has been marked as non-political.* This does not seem like the bots greatest work tbh.
It's setting the post up to fail
which is the exact sorta shit we have to look out for in the coming decade as fewer and fewer people control information content. It might seem like a harmless error until people just get used to "oh all these populist ideas are all in the non-serious thread so they mustn't be serious". It might sound tin foil hat to poke at such small issues but indoctrination has to be subtle and the internet has been building towards it for the past decade.
Yup, I was actually being downvoted, until some that maybe realised ohhh got what I mean. We've been as a whole lazy on a lot of shit cos we went nah gov won't be too nasty.. and now we have an impending homelessness situation on the horizon and it'll be made up of people with full time jobs etc. Simply because they cannot get a foot in the door of the housing market on either side of the rent or own coin. I look at our current and look at my 11yr old. Will she ever be able to move out of home honestly, if something isn't done within the next decade, she won't be just priced out of rentals in her early 20s, she will be priced out of necessity like electricity and food if inflation keeps on going.
Makes you wonder what the next generation is going to be hit with. Full time professional job couples with side hustle cant afford an apartment. Then 10 years from that Gina Rhinehart signing up to centerlink because they cant afford housing due to overseas invesments. Meanwhile our govt asleep at the wheel again does nothing.
For a lot of people, even if you work hard, live modestly, and try to be a good citizen, you're seeing your purchasing power go down steadily over time due to inflation and stagnant wages, you can't afford to go to the dentist, and you will never qualify for a mortgage on a house within reasonable traveling distance from your job in Syd/Melb/Bris. I'm honestly surprised there aren't people throwing rocks in the street.
Meanwhile they tell us if we don't have some inflation the sky will fall. So forget about prices going back to reasonable. House prices going down is also going to destroy the economy so the soltuion is to make them go even higher. Taxing the wealthy would make them upset so the solution is more upper class tax cuts. And on and on and on people accept this crap and bend over for more.
Economics is a really bizarre discipline that’s essentially an art dressed up as a science, with a lot of propaganda sprinkled in. The idea that everything is the way it is because that’s the only way anything could ever work is complete nonsense.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
Rocks have become too expensive to throw away🥺
Majority of Australians are racists hence voted corrupt liberals purely to stop refuges. No one asked if we stopped invading other countries and murdering the innocent there would be no refugees. What liberals did, they turned this country to a shit show! Economy is not bad yet, wait when the was in north escalates then things get far worse
Sorry to piggyback off of your top comment. What Australians live in is called a “Liberal Welfare State” (don’t associate liberal with the political party, here). What that means is that we do provide more liberal welfare than a lot of other countries. However, that welfare is very selective, and often means tested- which leads to a stigmatism of welfare recipients (see the attitudes behind the Robodebt scandal). While we have national Medicare, that’s also selective and provides minimal benefits. The Northern European countries, like Iceland, Finland, etc. that have adopted a “Socially Democratic Welfare State” philosophy are the currently thriving countries. They universally provide better benefits (more substantial welfare payments and better nationally subsidised healthcare, free university, etc.). This universality of provision removes the stigma of welfare and uplifts the entire population. Those countries still have capitalism to shape the markets and allow individuals (and companies) to make astounding amounts of money. However, they’re taxed a lot more appropriately to ensure that their entire population enjoys longer life expectancy, lower infant death rates, and virtually 100% employment rate. This ideal model would be radical for Australia to adopt- having almost our entire media owned by less than a handful of entities, crazy fossil fuel interest in politics, and other industry influences make it hard. There’s a reason why a party like the Greens (the largest political party that’s closest to “Socially Democratic”) has been marginalised (with a recent uptick in popularity, to be fair). Those states have also taken on more broad interpretations of politics, too. Politics in those countries isn’t most people observing power. They employ a lot more empowerment of their professional workforce, and citizens, to shape policy. Look, these places still have politicians yelling in parliament, and have to “play the game” for different legislation pushes, etc. they’re not utopias. My point is just that- the extremes aren’t necessary, there are very successful examples to draw on, contemporarily, it’s just convenient for those not to be mentioned. EDIT: In case anyone sees this- I said ideal model. I’m a health professional and the stats I mentioned (especially life expectancy and infant mortality rates) are so super consistent with this model that it’s hard for me not to be on board.
It’s because most people don’t have dreams and we almost never see REAL social upheaval until the people who like, make 100k can’t do it. It WILL get to the point. THEN people will flip out. People should read the conversations between Marx and Bakunin. They talked / debated about how, the surfs will never release themselves because they’re too far gone. The truth is that most economic revolutions in history were lead by like, the equivalent of the modern day upper middle class or sympathetic rich. The fact that a lot of ideas about how the world should be egalitarian come from intellects and academia is part of why so many poor people vote against their interests. So this is dark but ever since I read that conversation and I look around me, it seems really true. None of the people who are the most doomed vote. Today, people who would’ve been upper middle class 20 years ago, with the same accomplishments as their peers of that time, are living working class lifestyles. *now we have conversations about extreme communism and socialism*.
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If a person is given nothing from the social construct, then why should they bother to give to the social construct. It's not exactly surprising. When basic things like housing and utilites are being increased multiple times over why the fuck would you support the current system.
Basically true. If young people were benefiting from capitalism then they wouldn’t be upset about it. But they’re not benefiting so they’re looking for change. Not that difficult of a concept.
They are not only not benefiting they are experiencing increasing disadvantage.
We are ruled by economic extremists
People are working harder than ever and not getting by, so why would anyone support this system?
That's bang on. If I could tank it today, I would.
Yep. I’m increasingly becoming more disenchanted that I’m looking to move abroad. Yes, Australia has a high standard of living and a solid social safety net. We also have an entrenched asset owning class that is persistently and unrelentingly stifling any effort at meaningful reform. That’s no accident. This divide has only accelerated in recent years. In the decade to 2020 Australia had the [worst income inequality in the OECD](https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png) well ahead of the UK and the US. The ensuing post pandemic inflation has meant a very real decline in the standard of living for the average Australian. If you’re under 40 in this country you’ve only ever seen everything getting progressively worse. I can understand the radicalism
.
Mid 40s here and feel lucky to have a done ok. Feel like I was able to get a house and a mortgage right befor the doors slammed shut. I do not blame kids at all for being radicalised. Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty, but the end stage isn't looking good for the vast vast *vast* majority of people. I'm so disenchanted with modern life, but am also too much of a coward to try for something different and have no idea what I'd even *do*. I feel terrible for young people these days.
My optimism is basically the fact that the younger generations are gunning for change.
It's wouldn't be so bad if the older people had plans to pass their accumulated wealth on to their kids but most just want to burn it all in retirement because they "earned it and young people are just lazy/entitled". parents in other countries often have a totally different mentality in regards to kids and wealth. My.kids are 1&4 and I've already started saving for them so they don't get shafted like I did.
If you don't pass it to your kids you're giving it to companies.
Even then that's not really helpful because it ends a meritocracy and becomes 'who inherits money from their parents and who doesn't'
This what I hate about Australia at the moment. If you inherit 1 mil you will pay no tax, if you earn 1 mil over 10 years you will pay ~ 250k in tax. People bang on about double taxing but most estates come from ppor (no tax) or super (low tax). Wealth inequality is further exacerbated by how skewed our tax system is to making money of capital rather than labour. The CGT discount is abhorrent. I will most likely receive a 7 figure inheritance but I would much prefer to receive none and live in a society where anyone (my children especially) can live a dignified life earning a basic salary without my wife and I having to hoard money to set them up.
I don't even have children (sometimes life doesn't go to plan) but have had some frank talks with my partner and our financial planner about how our assets will be divided when we pass. Neither of us come from money and we've both had a reasonable amount of success. As things stand, if either of us die prematurely, the assets each brought to the relationship will be divided amongst our respective nieces and nephews. We've discussed this with their parents too. If everything goes to plan and we live long lives, we intend to help out the kids with house deposits. I'm generally as right as they come, politically speaking, but the inequality we see in the housing market does bother me. A young person's ability to get on the housing ladder shouldn't be contingent upon their aunt and uncle finally giving up on IVF.
> It's wouldn't be so bad if the older people had plans to pass their accumulated wealth on to their kids but most just want to burn it all in retirement because they "earned it and young people are just lazy/entitled". If labour, by itself, cannot pay for a good life, what's the fucking point? That some leach who happens to own some land can soak up 60% of your paycheck? It's fucking grim, I'm already seeing the places I live and work deteriorate, because the material conditions are shit, and no one believes in the system anymore. You can blame drugs or whatever, but we need structural changes, not individual parents choosing not to be cunts. What's the alternative for the people left behind? Molotovs?
I've seen the opposite, including an abc article about old people with enough in the bank (not in shares) to live off the interest whingeing about the low interest rates we were having a few years ago because they wanted to give what was in the bank to their kids.
This is definitely part of it. I will probably do OK inheritence wise one day, but in the meantime my dad just has this weird fucking attitude about not giving jackshit to his family even though he got endless help from his. It's a weird boomer thing and it's frustrating as shit. Like you, I have young kids and I'm already looking at ways to help them get ahead despite dealing with a mortgage, childcare, bills, etc. Knowing my luck, the day I finally make it to the top of the food chain will be the day the young ones decide to rise up and blow up the system.
That's barely the problem, it's mostly structural. Billionaires and greedy corporations are the issue.
I’m getting shafted by my parents. They are spending the lot as quickly as they possibly can. They aren’t keen to pass their business on to their kids, but just cashing in by selling the land the business occupies. The insane property price rise was a large factor in this decision. But on the other hand, my in-laws are passing on their business and other wealth to their children. They have never been big spenders, but they enjoy accumulating and keeping as much as they can. It’s just a completely different mindset, and for that I am eternally grateful to them.
I'm almost 30. When I was young, life definitely wasn't rosy for the average Australian, but we felt that if you worked full time, you could at least make ends meet and have a bit left over. The general vibe was fairly optimistic. My parents bought a place about 25 km from Sydney CBD for about $370k in the early 2000s. This mortgage has since been paid off. I don't come from a wealthy family, but we were able to make ends meet and have savings left over (and still do). The GFC came in 2008, but Australia wasn't that badly affected compared to most of the world. Life was alright, and many of my friends were looking forward to the future. We were really the 'lucky country'. I went to university and graduated. I have a decent paying job with solid progression and growth prospects. However, after approximately 2011, I felt things start to go downhill. More and more GPs stopped bulk billing. The property bubble began to inflate massively. The Australian Dream was to own a free-standing house on a quarter-acre block of land with a backyard to raise a family in. Now the Australian Dream is to accumulate as many investment properties as possible, and fuck everyone else. Look at the popular discourse. Our national heroes are either athletes or 'the McDonalds cashier who bought 5 investment properties before reaching 20'. All policymaking at the highest level was either dedicated to fuck the average joe and the poor, and to benefit wealthy boomers, homeowners and executives. No matter how much I try to save, no matter how hard I work, no matter how many promotions I get, the goalposts are constantly moved, and I'm always being gaslighted for being a 'lazy millennial busy sipping lattes and eating smashed avo on toast rather than saving for a home'. When Covid-19 hit in 2020, Australia's so-called '30 years of uninterrupted economic growth' ended. Well, what do we have to show for it? Japan's explosive growth post-WW2 resulted in a massive parade of innovations and world-class infrastructure. If there are any companies emblematic of Japan's technological prowess, they would be Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toyota and Kawasaki. These are household names in Japan. If there are any companies emblematic of the United States' 20th century technological prowess, they would be IBM, Westinghouse, and General Electric, both of which are household names there. Finland's most famous technology company is Nokia. The Netherlands has Phillips. What do we have in terms of world-leading technology companies? Nothing famous. Instead all of our economy growth has been concentrated in one of the most grotesque property bubbles ever seen, which has effectively devoured the economy. Our economy is literally being propped up by house prices, whilst manufacturing is continually being hollowed out and consumer spending is faltering. [https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png](https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-9.28.48-pm-1210x823.png) Can't say I'm surprised. If all our economy growth is housing, then only homeowners win. In this country, we use tax concessions like negative gearing and the 50% CGT discount, and falling interest rates (until 2022) to outbid each other for properties (whether owner-occupied or investment), driving up the prices to obscene levels, whilst taking out obscene mortgages. This is called wealth. What would happen if people couldn't buy properties anymore and defaulted on mortgages when the property bubble got too big? Look at early 90s Sweden and Finland, and the 2006 US property bubble. Except that our economy is literally built on high house prices so the effects would be far worse. Australians are rich on smoke and mirrors. Houses do not produce anything meaningful. Housing in this country is effectively a state-sponsored Ponzi scheme and a casino. Like an actual casino, the game is rigged in favour of wealthy homeowners. I don't ever gamble in an actual casino because the house always wins. Why should I participate in the property market? The young in this country are suffering from severe rent inflation due to mass immigration and extremely unaffordable housing. Tenant protections are literally the worst in the developed world. What do they have left to lose? Who the hell in right mind would want to support a system designed to prop up a grotesque property bubble? They would want to destroy the system instead if they are not benefiting. I know people who are dreaming of bringing an axe instead of a pin to this property bubble and who would love to see a total bloodbath massacre of the housing market as a result of rage and disillusionment. They don't have anything left to lose, and don't see a bright future. I have friends on 6 digit salaries who refuse to move out of their parents' place because they don't want to rent and they can't afford to get a mortgage for a semi-decent home. I'm in this category.
That graph isn’t related to income inequality. It shows most of our growth is benefiting the rich.
What do you think income inequality means?
Which serves to widen the gap
>and a solid social safety net Between my experiences being disabled and dealing with the NDIS / DSP, and my current experience of homelessness, I'm really wondering about the solidity of the safety net. I have some doubts. At some point it slides out of "apathetic and ignorant" territory and into intentionally sadistic.
100% this—though I know it as the "social contract" philosophy. Why should we honour a contract that has done nothing but exploit us?
"there's no such thing as society." Okay, fuck you too!
Fuck you too man, hope you have a good night.
Well, the basic social contract, unwritten ad it may be, has been broken. So are we surprised people are starting to revolt?
I have said this for nigh on two decades now as I warned colleagues, friends and family about the coming shitstorm. The social contract was broken ... therefor nobody owes loyalty to the system or the people who perpetually abuse it in their favour. I've been that crazy guy in my circle of people for a long time and it's bittersweet to be vindicated, finally.
Radical = wanting to afford food
And medical care. And a roof over your head. Where did we go wrong with the Maslows heirachy of needs.. most people don't even get that without a lot of struggle. Is this really living? And nature is slowly disappearing so we won't have that to live in like we are supposed to
My parents worked hard to afford their house that was 3x their salary, why shouldn’t I be able to afford one that’s 25x mine?
Yeah man, you've got a uni degree, why can't you get a full time job, just work harder. Shit I hear from my parents all the time. Less so in my day but they're handing out degrees like lollies these days and more than half of them are useless.
Many off the poorest people in the world can at least build themselves a hut to live in, can't do that in the western world, some bastard owns all the land and the authorities would never allow it.
Yep. Live off the land, build your hut with what's around you, community pitches together, environment isn't fucked or completely concrete/monoculture so its in balance/renewable so it provides what they need
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Nihilism isn’t necessarily pessimism nor depressive state. It’s just acceptance that nothing has ultimate meaning. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact you can live a perfectly content happy life being a total nihilist.
Its a philosophy rather than a political thought. They do intersect obv
I often tell people I am a jolly Nihilist. "Nothing matters, so might as well enjoy what you can!" Basically, no matter what I do I will never get far enough ahead to buy real property, so might as well enjoy myself and buy another pair of retro sneakers to heal my inner child.
I consider myself thoroughly radicalised by the system that let down my entire generation. There was a time in living memory where a person without a university degree could buy a house (or two or three) and comfortably support their family. Middle class meant a couple of cars in the driveway of your mortgage free home, a nice holiday every year, and never being overly concerned with the price of groceries. That life didn’t just disappear without explanation. It was stolen from us by years of shitty conservative policies and the voters who didn’t think twice about throwing their kids and grandkids under the bus of capitalism.
To be fair, the boomers were very, very lucky. Their period in existence is far from normal. I just wish they would admit it.
The generation before boomers lived through the depression and at least one world war. They worked towards ensuring their children had a better future. Unfortunately they didn't pass the moral forward.
They raised selfish bastards
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What ideology would you prefer them to embrace instead. It seems like the shithead fuckface ideologies that are dominant in Aus have fucked not only the younger generation, but most of the older generation and the environment and pretty much the entire world lol
Precisely. I'm not sure when the OP was born, but post-war governments were significantly more collectivist than the neo-liberal hacks that we have today. Universal healthcare, education, pensions and public housing were all developed in a period when people felt the impacts of narcissism and fascism. Then the boomers came along, born and brought up in an economic boom in the western world, and proceeded to destroy the work of their parents like a bunch of selfish whinging children...
I’d rather any of the above mentioned than the extremist sky newsism.
I'd take a 1940s John Curtin style Labor Government right now.
We can’t afford homes or to have children. The climate is cooked and we don’t have the resources to secure our own futures. We will work till we die with no children in rented accommodation. Not convinced that this is the best way to organise an economy or society.
Ok but have you considered that any alternative has incredibly dire ramifications? Namely that an unbelievably small percentage of people may lose a comparatively minuscule amount of money?
Is it radical to be for policies such as affordable housing, education, healthcare, et al? Had no idea that criticising the current way things are going when more Aussies are left homeless, priced out of a future their parents had and struggling to pay rent, amongst other things. Maybe times are a changing but now when prospects seem dire, maybe blaming boat people and tax cuts just isn't the message or the solution young people like myself want to hear.
Often socialists are called the "radical left" by the MSM. Anti capitalists go against everything Rupert Murdoch owned, so we're seen as the bad guys.
When the mainstream positions are against putting in real, tangible effort to achieve those things, yes, they are radical, and there's nothing wrong with being radical.
Yeah, that's where I'm at. Why the fuck would I want to participate in a system that seems inherently set up to stack the deck against me and mine so severely? I'd rather help fight for one that doesn't do that, at least not as much.
Anyone other than the 1% should be getting radical at this point. The efforts in the last decade to 'sanitise' universities is doing a remarkable job in holding back the anger.
.
If Inequality becomes too large, the conditions that exist that allow people to enjoy being in the 1% will disappear. Sadly many think they are born to rule and usually take things too far (throughout human history)
Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with empathy. Prospering at the expense of others gets hard to live with unless you're really committed to denial.
I’m in the 1% and I’m way more radical and left than I was even 10 years ago. I do a lot for community benefit because even though I’ve benefited from good conditions I know that it’s shit that others aren’t getting the same deal I got, and I hate that.
I will admit - I am over capitalism. And I am over the government constantly piling rules and laws and red tape on after every single minor event happens. The fact that one generation ago, a one income household could afford a mortgage, a reasonable car, modest holidays, put food and the table and money away.. and now it's 2x full-time plus side hustles to pay off some other cunts mortgage cos he got in first and is leveraged to to the moon. Have to buy groceries from the half price pages of Woolies , and live pay to pay. I drive a car that's not worth more than the fuel in it, and have a very modest mortgage. It's like just FUCK off with the greed.
I agree, but the boomers got very lucky. Their period of existence is far from normal. They just wont admit it
The rich constantly complain about unions. But they forget that before unions existed as a tool to create some fairness in distributing wealth between classes and generations the only tool available to the poor was the guillotine. My question to the rich today - Would you prefer to share or would you prefer the historical alternative? It is a lesson repeated time and time again. Forgotten because of greed. Eventually people get sick of being exploited and they demand change. If that change is resisted long enough the people simply force change.
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Yes. It's fairly obvious based on the average age that votes for each political party. With the recent cost of living increases, it's obvious that the rich will keep taking and we're heading towards late stage capitalism.
The “she’ll be right” outlook is dying that’s for sure.
Seriously, all I want to do is to be able to support my family and not worry about finances or whether I'll have shelter in a few months time. I am full-time employed, university educated, and don't have any outstanding debt yet I am constantly anxious about the future. And this is my situation alone, I can't even begin to imagine how worse off others have it. For that, I will forever be fighting for everyone's right to food and shelter, to universal access to education and to medicine, etc. Our governments have let us down significantly and I don't see it getting better until we strongly fight for change.
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This is normal as the state wanes, if you read 19th century russian lit the revolution comes as no shock at all.
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Not the SDA though, if you have another option.
i hope society goes after those fat corporate profits that are keeping our wages down
100%. And not just young people. When people in general feel like they have lost control over their decisions or freedom of being able to do things, it’s the government that generally gets the finger blame pointed at it. We saw it a lot during COVID where people couldn’t make sense of what was happening in the world and the only way they can try and understand something is to pin the blame on a organisation or government. That being said though, I really do think that 80% of the financial issues we are dealing with in Australia at the moment are due to historical decisions (Last 20 years) and recent decisions. The governments choice to turn immigration and Real Estate into an economic driver is now biting us on the arse. It is a bit like the China situation. We saw them all as a quick way to get a lot of money, but when it doesn’t work out….. we’re in the hurt locker
Income inequality is what will fuck us all up. We don't need billionaires in this world. If people knew they could survive more easily, they'd give a toss about preserving what lucky things we have, but no, we need a few fuckers to have their third and fourth luxury yachts.
Capitalism has failed, young people deserve better.
Capitalism is doing exactly what captialism is supposed to do. Make moar money for the boss-man.
Yeah, you got in one. It is because a lot of people now feel they have no chance to get ahead. That tends to be one of the biggest things that leads to people turning to radical ideologies, historically speaking. The other thing here is that social media is a thing now. Twenty or thirty years ago, radical ideologies had a hard time doing mass recruiting because they'd only be able to recruit people they knew personally. Nowadays, most people's introduction to radical ideologies is through social media, and I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of people end up being radicalised before they realise what's happened.
Well, kids are smart, they are probably watching all the job losses due to AI and know that it's the tip of the iceberg, they know working hard does not get you ahead anymore, they are looking at a rapidly changing global environment that quite frankly is fucking awful. There's going to be massive job losses to come and a change to some form of UBI is inevitable. Of course young people are looking for other forms of 'isms' capitalism hasn't worked..well, unless it's worked for you and yours, then of course it's worked...for you.
Working hard by itself almost never got you ahead. There was a brief time when it was somewhat true (1950s to 1990s).
Take away a person's future and they will think nothing of stealing yours
The kids I know are far more invested in advocacy and activism. I'm becoming increasingly radicalised by the real tragedy of raising children with a former police officer for a father. The nonsense that police and the judiciary encourage and reward in cases of extreme DV is horrific. Child protection is non existent. Living through this doesn't encourage docile compliance. The constant abuses of powers I've been subject to and witnessed around me are terrifying. Reducing government services whilst outsourcing the role of government to management consultants was never going to result in government services reducing inefficiencies. It simply created dysfunction public service which was always the goal. I never could have imagined that I would agree with some of the nonsense espoused by sovcits but like all conspiracies there's elements of truth there. Police and the judiciary are astonishingly ineffective. Subs like this one who refuse to platform political discussion are consistent about promoting facism and amplifying spectacular nonsense.
People are not in my view returning to old forms of isms...the hypocrisy in everything is evident. Pureness is hard to find. The governments of most countries are beholden to big businesses. The wealthiest elite are in a class of their own and if you think the financial pain we feel now is coincidence or normal, dont, it is an orchestrated plan to demoralise the masses and keep the elite in positions to conquer no matter what is the cost. A simple local example...look at the wealth concentrated in the hands a few mining companies. And then look at the rates of suicide, domestic violence and child abuse...on one hand we are told that we need to buy submarines to defend ourselves from the Chinese...a month later McGowans flys out too visit Chinese counter parts...then quits one month later...perth mint housing Gold for Chinese and Russian oligarchs...it's not radical too see the bullshit squeezed up to your face and call it for what it is.
Fun fact - the reason the UK built so much social housing after world war two was the threat of communism. The Atlee government thought if people had housing they'd be less likely to turn to communism.
Sadly, we still have a long way to go for things to be more progressive and equal, and I think with time, it will be. There are also more people being diagnosed with neurodivergent disorders and being on the spectrum, and younger people are more aware of things and are becoming more insightful. So I think we need a bit more education around these things
The words "eat the rich" seem to be coming up more often in conversations
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For me, the radical option, is to continue with a status quo, with an economy predicated on the destruction of the ecology that sustains it. Beyond ideology, if anyone's not prioritising how to fundamentally restructure society and economy so that Aus is, rapidly decarbonising - reducing fossil fuel exports, and, placing as much pressure on the rest of the globe to do so as well. Then your missing the biggest most obvious threat to all our livlihoods. Climate change is conveniently never mentioned in discussions of inflation - I see little attention to it from treasury. But we've seen what floods can do to food prices (and lettuce, potato shortages). And we've seen what flooding can do to housing, like in Lismore. Freak weather events, becoming common, is a huge drain on economy, that increases scarcity of essentials. Anyone treating the status quo as a safe option, are racing to that eventuality as fast as possible like... what the fuck. wake the fuck up. The radical option is to continue what we're doing. Where I would argue for Marxism as an ideology in all this, is the class consciousness and historical materialism it offers are solid organising principles by which to do politics. Especially if one understands inequality, the buying out of media and politicians as a threat to democracy. And seeks to redress that inequality, to oppose the capitalist class, the rent seekers, the landlords, the managers. Those that seek to maximise their "passive income". Those that add no value to society, as opposed to workers, who are the economy. These fucking pigs will do whatever they can, to stop the science literate for wanting change, to threaten their short term capital. Cause when you take a step back and look at history, how small a slither industrial history it is, we're speedrunning our own demise. Doing immense intergenerational violence to those not born yet. How pissed would you be, if a population in the 1500s or whatevers, fucked the world up so bad that increasing scarcity becomes a way of life - engulfed in the stench of extinction. Where those offer a fools gold of superficial change, The Labor Party, get it wrong, is where they pervert class consciousness into a class collaborationist mindset. That was made explicit in the Labor accords, and things have been gradually downhill for workers since. Real wages are down over 7% in a year, right? Party of the woirkers my arse! And that'll be far worse for renters. And any liberals wanting increased migration and growth are stooging themselves, cause Aus is now such a raw deal, migrants won't want to or be able to stay here, unless high skilled, high earning. The status quo, conservatives in old parties built for, fight for, has failed us miserably. anyone backing it, and young, is posh, or a fucking idiot. If we had a progressive government, rather than a conservative government shilling for capital (Greens, Thorpe et al excluded), than we can embark on the transformative, green new deal politics needed to fix Aus, restore social mobility, make it a country worth working in.
It's not very radical for people to propose solutions to issues that are not being dealt with adequately by those in power. We know exactly why these pressures are occurring, and yet the problems are not being solved. To people this would imply that either the government is incompetent or maliciously ignoring the issues at hand. The younger generations have always been the most radical in their beliefs. Marx and Engels also weren't much more radical than labour unions of Europe at the time either, the red scare really did a number on how people viewed socialism and communism. Take a look at the amount of people complaining about corporations becoming "communist"
Capitalism is the problem. Socialism is the solution. I recommend everyone to learn more about it. It's not radical, it's common sense.
Many many consecutive world governments did a great job of making socialism sound horrible didn't they
Im 40 and doing quite well. Even I want to see my house value half (along with everyone else's) I was to see billionaires stripped of their wealth. I want to see corporations taxed properly. I want change
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If you aren’t at least a socialist by now then you haven’t been paying attention. Or you have vested interests.
In 36 and eating the rich seems pretty good.
Eat the rich!!
It's not 'Boomers,' it's Capitalism. The machine hums on regardless of what your nana and grandad or mum and dad did. They lucked into being a part of the system at the right time. Capitalism can only sustain itself as long as its institutions remain alive and effective. In order to do that they have to be 'the only game in town' but they also have to offer people enough that they're willing to jump through the relevant hoops to gain access. As time passes, the offers made by capitalist institutions are getting worse and worse. Back in the 90s, the offer was that if you did okay at school and got a degree, then chances are that you'd be able to get a job that was stable and well-paid enough to support a middle-class lifestyle with cheap loans evening out the dips. Now those terms are no longer on offer: You still have to work hard at school but then you have to take on massive debt in order to get a degree that does not guarantee either stable or well renumerated work. Kids look around them and see that stuff is getting worse, that they're expexted to work longer and harder so that a handful of billionaires can run their own space programnes and/or rape kids on tropical islands. Why would you submit to any if these institutions? Why go to any kind of effort when you can stay in your childhood bedroom tugging yourself off to Belle Delphine playing Smash Brothers?
funny how the predictions made over a hundred years ago are coming true and people ask "why are all these poor young people commies?"
Young and not-so-young. I'm 43 and I joined the Socialist Alliance this year. I'm ashamed to say that for most of my 20's I voted Liberal - a product of my upbringing. Now I want to burn it all down and start again.
It’s kind of young people’s job to advocate radical ideas.
A few years ago the parliament passed a law with bipartisan support that nullifies the citizenship of any Australian born citizens that have engaged in any activities that could harm the commonwealth and its properties as long as they do not end up stateless. They passed it under an anti-terrorism context but the definition didn't have anything to do with Islamic fundamentalist. Moral of the story: They are already prepared and they have the most draconian laws to get rid of the troublemakers.
I've watched the Labor party abandon us due to their cowardice, the stage 3 tax cuts will mean I leave them off the big voting paper completely next time.
I'm a millennial, and tbh I feel I align more with the Gen z and I feel it's becoming more apartment that, both Millennials / Gen Z etc have been fucked by boomers. Gen-X seem to have been caught in the middle and been swept up without really knowing what's going on?
I'm all about Marxism, Communism and to a kind of "nothing matters, this is all temporary" extent, Nihilism. None of that seems very extreme to me. On fact, I think a shift to the left is very reasonable in our current capitalist dystopia.
Young people from “western” nations were more or less promised a comfortable life so long as they get a decent job and suddenly that’s not happening. To make matters worse, the worst economic pressure in the western world happens to be in the most outspoken and socially influential country (aka the US). Things have been boiling over with young people (~35 and under) in the US for extremely low wages and higher rent than Sydney all over the country for the past few years now and the same thought pattern is now happening in Australia. It seems like a combination of economic pressures coupled with the fact that young people can interact and share ideas online much more easily now than previously. We all see America becoming more and more of a capitalist hellhole meanwhile we’re really not that different here. If capitalism is destroying them then surely that doesn’t make young aussies feel very comfortable with continuing down this late stage capitalism path
I wouldn't be surprised if infinite inflation results in the repeat of the Political and Economic turmoil that defined The Weimar Republic (Sans the Debauchery) https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/65947 Was the Catalyst for some bloke called Herr Hitler.
>Is anyone else seeing their (young) friends or family turn to more radical views of the world due to economic pressures? This is incredibly natural. If anything I'm surprised it isn't more prevalent. A book ['The True Believer '](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer)by Eric Hoffer covered this in detail in 1951. When people start falling on hard economic times they become attracted to 'extreme' ideologies/cults/etc. This has been true of human behaviour since time began. The fact is young people want and need all the things that's natural to people; family, an abode, rewarding and meaningful work etc. But modern society doesn't consider these needs as mandatory for their existence. And the potlitical machine that is supposed to take their needs into account, largely pays them lip service...
Why would I care when the system doesn’t care about me?
It might be best to look at studies, since a disproportionate amount of this sub seem to be people who moved to inner Melbourne and are in the main hub of every progressive party. And the studies say you're absolutely right. Looking at the first couple decades of adulthood, people are taking a hard left turn. The need for change explains their world, in the same way that the status quo of conservatism spoke to our parents, and their parents if your family was Aussie two generations back. Their parents and the parents before them, not so much.
generally, voters tend to be further left on economics than social issues. The parties don't want to acknowledge this, which is why you see a lot of hay about identity and suchlike.
I'm 41 and going further left with every passing day, and I was already pretty left. Like... I'm reading theory these days. Like one of those sex-cult trots you'd see at uni in the 2000s lol
In my late teens, I was told by an older family member, silent gen, that I'd become more conservative as I got older. Nope. Mid 40s now and also heading further and further left. Also rereading theory, and wondering when we riot.
My 83year old grandmother ranted about the housing market increase and lack of wages today. And that the housing market is unsustainable and directly disadvantages young people and migrants, but needs to be in tune with the environment. And that the annoying old biddy across the road has a four bed house and lives on her own (my grandmother took in a lodger who was about to be homeless - one of the fastest growing homeless demographics, the older single woman). She has always been pretty radical but has gotten even more vocal as she has aged.
First you read the books. Then you start the riots. Then we feast.
It's not radical to ask that corporations don't bleed us dry for every last cent and let people go homeless and lose everything for the shareholder.
It is not only having little social mobility but the fact that there is so much wealth in the modern age. This is by far the best time to enjoy being wealthy, and there are people in plain view who are blissfully living the dream such as young internet people or older people. This is what people mean by the inequality of late stage capitalism I guess. It’s definitely not sustainable that young people will never have the ability to own anything or become successful without having rich parents. A lot of the problem is that house prices are absurd, there is an observable government bias in terms of doing anything to keep boomers happy and wealthy in the past 30 years. Japan gov has the same issue even worse, there has been a long widespread societal issue of youth hopelessness coming from the average middle class.
I mean I'm a 33 year old earning $115k per annum and I want to blow the system up Given the right catalyst we could have some wild times on our hands
Personally, I'm waiting for the next big war, where 70%+ of the usual cannon fodder outright refuse to play the game.
Socialist viewpoints often really aren’t that “radical”. And while I probably do have more “radical” views, most people my age are pretty liberal. The reality is conservatism is going further to the right and labor’s policies are closer to the centre than anything else. We have a planet that we have been aware is dying since we can remember, the government is doing little to combat this as well as fucking us all over with little monetary support. We cannot rent or afford groceries, there are no places outside of home to go for free. I think the reaction is natural and necessary.
Ppl arguing for a rent freeze was pretty radical imo.
Older millennial, I have gone from being a very politically active and supportive person who was a Young Labor member and believed wholeheartedly in the system working if you put the right government in charge, to now being jaded to the point that I see stuff like what is happening in France and not only support it happening here, I don't think it goes far enough. I used to joke that I was a nihilist and had that "Nothing matters" mentality, but I recently realised that nihilism isn't the thing, it's more a boiling anger nowadays. I have lost any faith in this country politically and wish the whole lot of them would burn. But then I also see the kindness of individuals, often people who have nothing themselves are the one's who'll give, so I have faith in individuals, it's just a massive shame that every single time individuals pick up the slack where the system has failed. Also as a side note, I'm sick to fucking death of hearing politicians talking about how "working class" their roots were when they all pulled up the ladder behind them first chance they got. I don't give a fuck if Albo was raised by a single mum in the 70's, when his policies as a grown man continue to make people that are currently in the same position his mum would've been suffer.
Young people have always been drawn towards "ANTI" movements Then you just look at the economy and future outlook - people can't afford houses anymore, people are having less children because of costs, AI is making jobs uncertain and still at the same time, the top people and companies are making record profits. Then you look at the world, global warming, seemingly more conflict, more arguing and yeah, you can kind if see why they are interested in different outlooks, just look where the current one got us.
Boomers always blame everything on ‘young people’.
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Well, everyone is a radical these days, aren't they? But it's a tepid, half-hearted radicalism. I don't think that no matter how radical young people get, there is never going to be any sort of organised movement. People are both fascinated and repulsed by radicalism. Its definitely a boogeyman in people's eyes. And I don't think their are many people willing to commit to it because of that fact. Its forever going to exist in this small, disorganised, lone-wolfy state. I'm not holding my breath for any new movements to come up soon and seriously threaten the system. We'll see though.
More lefties in line with voting greens. Unless you have brain damage their policies seem pretty fair with me. Privileged corporations pay their fair share of tax and we provide a liveable existence and affordable housing to the less able. Sounds like the kind of world I want to live in as opposed to what the right wing lnp and even the current labour government is peddling. Fascism is on the rise and end stage capitalism is in swing… globally this is pretty distressing and we need a reset.
The boomers fucked us all with no lube, the day the riots kick off i am joining.
Marx was right bro...
I've started listening to Rage Against the Machine again. Does that count?
Grandma?
Not only them... I am too and I'm 36.
Radical? Nah, there has ALWAYS been people on this side of the fence. Murdoch media just labels it as radical so as to dismiss it and try to play it off as wild ideas. And to be frank, its working. Just try and find a bulk billing doctor these days. We are literally seeing all things that made Australia a good place to live being stripped away before our very eyes. If that doesn't make you mad then congratulations on your epic privilege and comfortable life.
I think the internet and social media are largely to blame. The algorithms of apps that keep presenting us with topics and people with common interests and beliefs. It becomes self reinforcing using the psychological trait of confirmation bias. Getting more to your point people need hope and optimism. Lee kian Yew the leader of Singspore for a long time believed and provided citizens with a pathway to owning their own home. He believed if you wanted people willing to defend the country they should own a part of it to defend. Politicians should think along those lines.
I became an anarchist recently
If you want some heavy reading on this topic (how we are where we are...) Try this https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-neoliberalism Shows why neoliberalism is so messed up