Youthful Ignorance and Public Policy
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The voice of youth is fine, so long as it knows what it’s talking about
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Up until the 1950s, the voices of youth were generally not given much credence, if heard at all. Then came the “Beat Generation.” as coined by Jack Kerouac, where youth was seen as a semi-rebellious movement, as personified by James Dean. But then the voice of youth (anyone under 30 to borrow their definition from the children of the 60s) came into bloom in the 1960s where teenagers and those in their 20s protested everything from social injustice (which in their view included the illegalization of drugs) to the Vietnam war.
It’s tough to say what impact the protesters had in ending the Vietnam war but it ended sooner than had they not publicly weighed in like they did.
But since the 1960s, youth has still been speaking far louder than before it. And on complex topics like global warming and economics.
Recently, there I looked at a picture (below) of Cypriot students protest the bailout package that the European Union was giving to 2 of the largest banks in Cyprus. I wondered how many of them knew about the underlying mechanics of the crisis. And how much did they know about banking? If even a handful of them had any material assets of significantly greater value than their I-Whatevers, that would be a surprise. Most likely they did not have deposits in the failed banks being rescued. In short, they probably had little if any immediate skin in the game, let alone knowledge on the matter.
Associated Press
Cypriot students protest the bailout package in Nicosia, March 26.
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But from a long-term perspective, they unknowingly put quite a few chips on the table. By advocating yet another ostensibly painless government bailout, they were only advocating piling on even more debt and burden onto themselves and generations yet born. How many of them will support an endlessly growing government-state when they become taxpayers.
This has become the common thinking: assume that somehow The Great Oz (government) will resolve all problems. Any social, economic, environmental or other problem can be solved by government and whenever there is the slightest bit of pain inflicted on private parties for their malfeasance or just plain lousy judgment, it is because government has not come to the rescue enough.
Perhaps more than even during the Great Depression, all too many people believe that government is a panacea for all of the world’s ills.
The problem with this anti-physics thinking is that, ultimately, government solutions must be paid for, as government merely transfers and does not create wealth. Thus, government is solving a problem with other people’s resources. So who specifically must pay for the government solutions? Future generations, whether they be in the private sector or choose the refuge from reality that all too much of government employment is.
Perhaps all students should take an obligatory course in physics and learn one of its basic tenets: to give to one thing you must take from another.
-I.M. Windee
