Why are millennials burned out? Capitalism.

[ActionfigureJoe]

I really like his description about the obsession with technology and efficiency.  It’s one of the key pieces of this generation. 

 

“If Millennials are different, it’s not because we’re more or less evolved than our parents or grandparents, it’s because they’ve changed the world in ways that have produced people like us.”

That’s how Malcolm Harris, an editor at the online magazine the New Inquiry, begins his book Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials. It’s a smart, contrarian look at the social and economic problems plaguing millennials — defined as people born between 1980 and 2000. 

But it’s not a typical defense of millennials. Harris, who is a millennial (as am I), makes no attempt to undercut the complaints of baby boomers — namely, that millennials are anxious, spoiled, and narcissistic. 

Instead, he asks: What made millennials the way they are? Why are they so burned out? Why are they having fewer kids? Why are they getting married later? Why are they obsessed with efficiency and technology?

And his answer, in so many words, is the economy. Millennials, he argues, are bearing the brunt of the economic damage wrought by late-20th-century capitalism. All these insecurities — and the material conditions that produced them — have thrown millennials into a state of perpetual panic. If “generations are characterized by crises,” as Harris argues, then ours is the crisis of extreme capitalism.

I spoke to Harris about the case he lays out in the book, and why he thinks millennials will have to overthrow the system and rewrite the social contract if they want to meaningfully improves their lives — and the lives of future generations. 

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

The core thesis of your book is that millennials were made, not born. So what are the major forces or institutions that made millennials what they are?

Malcolm Harris

Well, I take a very Marxist perspective on the world, so I’m looking at the dynamics of the labor market, the relationship between employers and the employed, basically the entire economic environment — these are the dominant forces shaping life in my view.

What I focused on is millennials as workers and the changing relationship between labor and capital during the time we all came of age and developed into people. If we want to understand why millennials are the way they are, then we have to look at the increased competition between workers, the increased isolation of workers from each other, the extreme individualism of modern American society, and the widespread problems of debt and economic security facing this generation. 

Sean Illing

The key variable you emphasize in the book is the divergence between productivity and compensation — or the fact that people are working harder while wages aren’t going up. Why is this such an important data point for you? And how has it altered the day-to-day life of millennials?

Malcolm Harris

I think it’s crucial. Marxists would refer to this as an increase in the rate of exploitation, meaning workers are working longer, harder, and more efficiently but are receiving less and less in return. I reference Marxism here (even though his name never appears in the book) because conventional American economists don’t really have a term for this — it’s not something they like to talk about because they don’t recognize that capitalism is built on exploitation. 

But it is a defining shift in our society, and millennials have been forced to grow up and enter the labor market under these dynamics, and we’ve internalized this drive to produce as much as we can for as little as possible. That means we take on the costs of training ourselves (including student debt), we take on the costs of managing ourselves as freelancers or contract workers, because that’s what capital is looking for. 

And because wages are stagnant and exploitation is up, competition among workers is up too. As individuals, the best thing we can do for ourselves is work harder, learn to code, etc. But we’re not individuals, not as far as bosses are concerned. The vast majority of us are (replaceable) workers, and by working harder for less, we’re undermining ourselves as a class. It’s a vicious cycle.

 

Sean Illing

Class exploitation is hardly new, right? That’s as old as capitalism. What is it about this moment that seems different to you?

Malcolm Harris

It’s a matter of scale, right? The levels of inequality we’re seeing now are pretty extraordinary. One of the big things I allude to in the book is this question of human capital. The burdens of capital production have been shifted more and more onto workers and their families — they get fewer benefits and less support. The state helped with many of these things in the 1960s and ’70s, and before that, corporations actually picked up a lot of the slack. 

But now you have individual workers, individual students, taking on this burden of making themselves into the workers the economy needs them to be and taking on all the expenses of that. Which is why so many millennials are drowning in so much student debt, while at the same time their educations are becoming less valuable in the market, which is hyper-competitive, heavily pro-business, and constantly changing. 

Sean Illing

Part of what you’re saying is that modern capitalism (often referred to as “neoliberalism”) has created a world in which everything is about competition and self-interest and productivity, and as a result, corporations are squeezing more out of workers and making it harder for individuals to even think of themselves as part of a community. 

Is that more or less the picture you’re painting?

Malcolm Harris

I mean, that’s what neoliberalism is, right? We’re all individuals, not members of a class or a community. We’re all economic agents pursuing our self-interest. This is the basis of our whole society right now, and both Republicans and Democrats have signed on to it.

In the book, I talk about an Obama-era education policy that basically seeded this idea that education was all about job preparation. There was no other real justification for it. That puts you on a really dangerous course because that’s all about human capital production, and then you have a system where the schools set out to produce skills in children based on what people who own companies say they want those kids to have, what skills they’ll need from their workers. 

So our entire lives are framed around becoming cheaper and more efficient economic instruments for capital. That, taken to an extreme, has pretty corrosive effects on society, particularly young people. 

 

“It’s not for me to say what must be done, but people can look at the world and decide for themselves”

 

Sean Illing

You talk a lot in the book about how millennials are burned out, that we’ve been conditioned to worship productivity and efficiency. Is that just a function of living in the cutthroat, hyper-competitive world you’re describing?

Malcolm Harris

I think that’s part of it. When I went into this project, I thought I was going to be very critical of helicopter parents, but then I realized that the parents doing this are doing it for pretty understandable reasons.

Most of these are working-class parents who are looking at an economy where the gap between the haves and the have-nots, between workers and capitalists, is growing bigger and bigger every day, and where the middle class is basically disappearing. So they feel like they have to give their kids the best shot they possibly can, just so they can catch up and not fall even further behind.

Sean Illing

I’ll offer a little pushback here: One could read your book as saying that millennials were promised a version of the American dream and simply didn’t get it. Or someone might read this and say that you’re assuming a certain level of material comfort is a kind of birthright for Americans, when in reality that’s never been the case, particularly for nonwhite Americans.

Malcolm Harris

Well, the promise that hard work will lead to a better life was definitely not just sold to white Americans. That has been sold to black Americans, to Hispanic Americans, to everyone. The American dream is not a product that is only sold to white people. 

I’m not interested in arguing that millennials didn’t get what they were promised. It’s a question of exploitation. This is a fundamentally capitalist story. Workers have always been exploited, but that rate of exploitation — measured by the productivity wage gap we talked about earlier — is increasing exponentially for millennials.

Sean Illing

Do you think millennials are at all complicit in their own fate? After all, many of the economic forces — I’m thinking of Silicon Valley in particular — that are undermining our own happiness and security have been engineered by millennials.

Malcolm Harris

Oh, absolutely. They’re exploiters like any other. They might even be better at it, in fact. When I talk about millennials, it’s not, like, a metaphor whereby millennials are the working class and boomers are the ruling class or something. The capitalist millennials are going to be just as bad, if not worse, than their predecessors, because they’ve inherited this exploitative system.

 

Sean Illing

You write at the end of the book that history asks different things of different generations. What will it ask of millennials?

Malcolm Harris

That’s a great question, and one I’ve been thinking about a lot. I wish I had an answer at the end of the book, but I honestly didn’t — at least not a good one. 

Sean Illing

Well, to the extent that you’re right, I’d say we have to get out of this frame of generational conflict and think much bigger, but that opens up a whole new set of challenges.

Malcolm Harris

I totally agree. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the historical task confronting us may be larger than we ever imagined. It may well be that America dies or the world dies, or that this global economic order dies or our problems just get worse.

Sean Illing

So I want to make sure I’m clear on what you’re saying here. You’re essentially arguing that the system is fundamentally flawed and thus there is no ultimate solution short of overthrowing it. In other words, the only solution is revolution. But that’s a very difficult thing to control or predict. 

Malcolm Harris

It is. A much smarter Malcolm than I, Malcolm X, said you don’t have revolutions without bloodshed, and he was probably right. But we’re in a situation now where the ruling class feels so powerful and I’m not sure what it will take to change things.

I mean, we have thousands of Americans dead in Puerto Rico, and that’s an attack by the ruling class. You had all these vulture funds that swooped into Puerto Rico, threw them even deeper into debt, and eviscerated the public services, and people died because of it. That’s an attack by any definition. 

Sean Illing

It’s hard to read your book and not walk away with a sense of fatalism about our situation. Do you see no value in pushing for meaningful social change within the system? Do you see any value in political movements that are seeking practical policy shifts that won’t overturn capitalism but might nevertheless reduce suffering?

Malcolm Harris

I definitely have a sense of fatalism about this system. I don’t think capitalism can last forever (or even much longer), and I think if you asked a bunch of ecologists, they’d agree with me. That doesn’t mean what comes next will necessarily be better, but if by “within this system” you mean liberal capitalist democracy, then no, I don’t see any real strategic possibilities there. 

That said, I’m not committed to only doing the most correct things. I voted for Hillary Clinton, I volunteer with groups in my neighborhood that are focused on harm reduction, etc. I’ve even helped put on a training for the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America].

Revolution is hard, and that’s not an excuse not to participate in your community. But we have to be realistic about the possible near- and medium-term outcomes for this system, and there aren’t any good ones. We have to deal with capitalism soon, or it will deal with us. 

Sean Illing

The very last thing you say in the book is that millennials will have to become either fascists or revolutionaries. Is the choice really that binary? Are you convinced revolution is the only answer, knowing all that that implies?

Malcolm Harris

Yes, is the very simple answer. It’s not for me to say what must be done, but people can look at the world and decide for themselves. What I can tell you now is that we appear to be running out of options for reform. 

This article was originally published on February 4, 2019.

[motonoggin]

Good read. 

[ActionfigureJoe]

16 minutes ago, motonoggin said:

Good read. 

I drove to a seminar with a young guy from one of the agencies that I work. He got pissed when I took the long way there. I told him that I liked it better because it was a more scenic and enjoyable ride. He pouted most of the way bitching that it was a waste of time. Ive seen a pattern of an obsession with efficiency with many M generation people. It’s kinda troubling. 

[motonoggin]

2 hours ago, ActionfigureJoe said:

I drove to a seminar with a young guy from one of the agencies that I work. He got pissed when I took the long way there. I told him that I liked it better because it was a more scenic and enjoyable ride. He pouted most of the way bitching that it was a waste of time. Ive seen a pattern of an obsession with efficiency with many M generation people. It’s kinda troubling. 

The oldest millennial turns 40 next year. These aren't kids anymore, they're having kids.

[Zambroski]

Not all millennials are disenfranchised losers set on spending their lives whining about their inability to complete in a system that rewards hard work, initiative and intelligence.  I know many that are not only doing well but, are just reaching the pinnacle years of their earning power with plans on early retirement.  

Some get it, some do not.  Some can do it, some can not.  Some just refuse to try....and failure is their reward.

 

[motonoggin]

7 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Not all millennials are disenfranchised losers set on spending their lives whining about their inability to complete in a system that rewards hard work, initiative and intelligence.  I know many that are not only doing well but, are just reaching the pinnacle years of their earning power with plans on early retirement.  

Some get it, some do not.  Some can do it, some can not.  Some just refuse to try....and failure is their reward.

 

Why haven't you hung yourself with a bunch of tied together socks yet?

[Zambroski]

Just now, motonoggin said:

Why haven't you hung yourself with a bunch of tied together socks yet?

I’m not good at sock knots.

[revkevsdi]

On the bright side no one mentioned participation trophies. 

I’m 54 and the more I think about it my generation had it great.  Houses were cheap, unemployment was almost always under 10%, a sensible education almost guaranteed a good job.  We grew up under the threat of WW3. But a Cold War is far better than what the the Bush administrations delivered. 

Milenials grew up with the threat of WW3 in a time when there was actually wars raging, soldiers returning home dead. That’s a little more real so as far as threats, they had it far worse. 

We grew up when there was devastating famine in some countries. I don’t remember thinking there was much we could do about it except collect some coins at Halloween while we were collecting a pillow case filled with candy. 

Millenials grew up thinking they should give up some presents so money could go to Africa or for the Tsunami victims. 

Then you have the climate crisis. They not only know about the threat, they feel they have to do something and can do something. 

That’s a lot of pressure and a big change from the pressure we were under which was basically buy a bigger house and earn more money than your parents did. 

[revkevsdi]

15 hours ago, motonoggin said:

Why haven't you hung yourself with a bunch of tied together socks yet?

I would guess his complete lack of self awareness has a lot to do with it. 

[teamgreen02]

16 hours ago, Zambroski said:

Not all millennials are disenfranchised losers set on spending their lives whining about their inability to complete in a system that rewards hard work, initiative and intelligence.  I know many that are not only doing well but, are just reaching the pinnacle years of their earning power with plans on early retirement.  

Some get it, some do not.  Some can do it, some can not.  Some just refuse to try....and failure is their reward.

 

That's pretty much us.  Good jobs, make plenty of money, no debt other than the house, lots in savings and retirement.

Wasn't easy. I graduated during the peak of the financial crisis.  Started with an engineering degree making $12 an hour at a machine shop.

Wife had over six figures in student loans now all paid off.  Mine are gone too.

Work with lots of millennials now. All sharp guys and i make sure they are paid well.

[steve from amherst]

14 minutes ago, revkevsdi said:

On the bright side no one mentioned participation trophies. 

I’m 54 and the more I think about it my generation had it great.  Houses were cheap, unemployment was almost always under 10%, a sensible education almost guaranteed a good job.  We grew up under the threat of WW3. But a Cold War is far better than what the the Bush administrations delivered. 

Milenials grew up with the threat of WW3 in a time when there was actually wars raging, soldiers returning home dead. That’s a little more real so as far as threats, they had it far worse. 

We grew up when there was devastating famine in some countries. I don’t remember thinking there was much we could do about it except collect some coins at Halloween while we were collecting a pillow case filled with candy. 

Millenials grew up thinking they should give up some presents so money could go to Africa or for the Tsunami victims. 

Then you have the climate crisis. They not only know about the threat, they feel they have to do something and can do something. 

That’s a lot of pressure and a big change from the pressure we were under which was basically buy a bigger house and earn more money than your parents did. 

Ya left out we didn't need condoms. Only gays and haitens had hiv back then.

[Zambroski]

2 minutes ago, teamgreen02 said:

That's pretty much us.  Good jobs, make plenty of money, no debt other than the house, lots in savings and retirement.

Wasn't easy. I graduated during the peak of the financial crisis.  Started with an engineering degree making $12 an hour at a machine shop.

Wife had over six figures in student loans now all paid off.  Mine are gone too.

Work with lots of millennials now. All sharp guys and i make sure they are paid well.

Regardless of what "class" we were born into or, how we are so conveniently labeled and classified....some "get it" and some do not.  Some can stand on their own and thrive...and some can not.  The difference is, the amount of us that try vs. the amount that don't....and how the rest of us decide which to help.  Hint...it's not the ones that don't try.  And that's what makes them furious.

[teamgreen02]

2 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Regardless of what "class" we were born into or, how we are so conveniently labeled and classified....some "get it" and some do not.  Some can stand on their own and thrive...and some can not.  The difference is, the amount of us that try vs. the amount that don't....and how the rest of us decide which to help.  Hint...it's not the ones that don't try.  And that's what makes them furious.

Case in paint my BIL, 31 years old living at home with his parents raising his child.

[Highmark]

Choose a field that is in demand.   Simple as that.  If you don't want to go to college fine plenty of high paying fields in the trades.   Quit fucking complaining.  

[Zambroski]

24 minutes ago, teamgreen02 said:

Case in paint my BIL, 31 years old living at home with his parents raising his child.

I've got two cousins in CA.  Flaming liberal surfer fags living off mom and dad's bank account since college.  Their father made me the executor of his will last year.  THEY ARE FURIOUS!  Losers...both of them.  Wait til they get a load of his will.   

Just now, Highmark said:

Choose a field that is in demand.   Simple as that.  If you don't want to go to college fine plenty of high paying fields in the trades.   Quit fucking complaining.  

This was a dig at the liberal arts degreed people.  TAKE IT BACK OR THEY'LL SPIT ON YOUR COFFEE!!!  Don't tip them...it makes me laugh.   

[Anler]

16 hours ago, motonoggin said:

Why haven't you hung yourself with a bunch of tied together socks yet?

Cuz Obama, that's why! Bahahahha!

[revkevsdi]

39 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Regardless of what "class" we were born into or, how we are so conveniently labeled and classified....some "get it" and some do not.  Some can stand on their own and thrive...and some can not.  The difference is, the amount of us that try vs. the amount that don't....and how the rest of us decide which to help.  Hint...it's not the ones that don't try.  And that's what makes them furious.

https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

You keep telling yourself that. 

[snopro31]

9 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

I've got two cousins in CA.  Flaming liberal surfer fags living off mom and dad's bank account since college.  Their father made me the executor of his will last year.  THEY ARE FURIOUS!  Losers...both of them.  Wait til they get a load of his will.   

This was a dig at the liberal arts degreed people.  TAKE IT BACK OR THEY'LL SPIT ON YOUR COFFEE!!!  Don't tip them...it makes me laugh.   

You are going to need that degree to be the night manager at mcdonalds.

[Zambroski]

Just now, revkevsdi said:

https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

You keep telling yourself that. 

I'm not reading your fucking cut and pastes.  If you have an argument, state it..if you can.  Or, at least pull out parts of the article in which you'd like to debate.

Retard

[ArcticCrusher]

2 minutes ago, revkevsdi said:

https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

You keep telling yourself that. 

You think it's the name?

[Zambroski]

Just now, snopro31 said:

You are going to need that degree to be the night manager at mcdonalds.

That's not true either.  LOL!  My daughter has a friend that is a manager at one...or in training or some shit.  HS GRAD.  

I think the degrees are now for coffee baristas.   

I hope my daughter doesn't waste my(her) money on college.

[jtssrx]

We don’t have pure capitalism. Pure capitalism would’ve never seen bank or big three bailouts. 

[Zambroski]

Just now, jtssrx said:

We don’t have pure capitalism. Pure capitalism would’ve never seen bank or big three bailouts. 

Fact.  "Social Capitalism".

[ArcticCrusher]

3 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

I'm not reading your fucking cut and pastes.  If you have an argument, state it..if you can.  Or, at least pull out parts of the article in which you'd like to debate.

Retard

I'm sure RevBeta is only hiring top notch.  I wonder how many applicants even have white names?

[teamgreen02]

10 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

I've got two cousins in CA.  Flaming liberal surfer fags living off mom and dad's bank account since college.  Their father made me the executor of his will last year.  THEY ARE FURIOUS!  Losers...both of them.  Wait til they get a load of his will.   

I'm sure you'll handle it in a professional, PC manner, with consideration for everyone's thoughts and feeling.