We live with the shaming reality of over a million unemployed young people. In a country reported to be in the top ten economies in the world. The Prince’s Trust have done us a favour in exposing how devastating it is to be long-term unemployed in the UK and under 25. Suicidal thoughts, despair and deep frustration are commonplace. Lack of self-esteem fostered by a benefits system with the assumption that the young people they work with are all layabouts and wastrels. Forced attendance at Mickey Mouse unpaid ‘work’ schemes show the contempt with which the young unemployed are treated by the major political parties. The way that G4S and similar shoddy outfits make vast profits claiming non-existent progress is also instructive. Private - no matter how criminal, inept or corrupt = good. Public - no matter how selfless, helpful and effective = bad. The number of long-term youth unemployed rose under New Labour and has continued to rise with the Coalition in charge.
There has been an outbreak of handwringing in some media but little real insight. This was one readers response to such a hand-wringer.
“You note that Labour poured money into education, but it didn't produce jobs as a result. There's no connection there--you can have well-educated homeless people without jobs, or illiterates. Education does not equal employment.
There's a more basic problem, though, one that columnists and commentators typically avoid: the "left" isn't left--I mean the Labour Party, as you speak to that example. They are as fully tied to the misnamed "free enterprise system" as are their arch-rivals, the Tories. It is there you ought to be looking for an explanation, both in respect to employment and to the broader malaise of a society in which the common people have little voice and influence.
It needs to be said: in a capitalist economy, the most any ruling party (or coalition) can do, is to move the chairs around a bit. Capitalism does not lift society, it does not create abundance, and it does not empower societies to self-rule and freedom from work. Those should be active goals of any so-called democracy, but they are not; instead, all is geared towards enrichment of corporations and a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people.
The young are not stupid or uninformed; they can see quite clearly this is a society of not caring about others, and Labour is simply an example of a familiar kind of shill who affects a sympathetic lingo. When it comes to the facts of economic life, a capitalist economy provides nothing in the way of freedom for the many. On the contrary, their lot is aptly called wage slavery, and it is an arrangement as antiquated and destructive as the feudal relations that preceded its appearance in history.
It isn't the left that's failing the young and their future imperiled by polluting technology; it's a society out of reach and control of the mass of people whose interests are actively traduced by organized greed. (my emphasis) This is now a matter of global survival, and young people are aware of this, as well. Given the fecklessness of most of their elders, why would they not feel despair and a "what the hell" attitude? It's up to us to put this right--and time is short.” OccupyEyed 4/1/14 Guardian Online
And which party is it which best serves ‘organised greed’? Why if it isn’t our old friends the Tory Party with their not so secret symbiotic relationship with bankers and financiers. Not too far behind are the betrayers of the Labour Party and the little-willied LibDems who just love being ‘in power’ even if it means betraying any remaining principles.
So who to turn to?
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