From Brexit to the US presidential election and beyond, prepare for the clash of generations
Niall Ferguson says it’s no wonder youths in many developed societies want change, having been forced to inherit a world burdened by debt and liabilities – but don’t blame capitalism
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” Marx and Engels famously declared in their Communist Manifesto. A century and a half later, with communism seemingly buried under the rubble of the Soviet Union, Samuel Huntington predicted a clash of civilisations.
But what if the great struggle of our time turns out to be between the generations? Writing in 2001, in a book called The Cash Nexus, I warned of a coming conflict of economic interests between the young and the old. The only question in my mind was when this conflict would surface politically. Well, now it has.
How one young jobseeker has shone the spotlight on an inter-generational war
Just consider the generation gap on the question of Brexit. According to data published recently by YouGov, voters aged 18 to 29 are strongly in favour of Britain remaining in the European Union, by 72 per cent to 27 per cent. At the other extreme, voters aged 60 and over are Brexiteers by 65 per cent to 35 per cent.
Or look at the contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. On the latest figures, the under-30s preferred Sanders by a 71-to-28 margin. A quarter of Sanders’ total votes came from young voters, compared with just 10 per cent of Clinton’s.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that the Democratic lead over the Republicans will increase when the election finally arrives in November. In 2012, 62 per cent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted Democrat, compared with 42 per cent of the over-65s.
