At some point after reading about economic history of the West, it seems that everything went down with the 80s.
It also seemed like the 50s/60s/70s -what we call in France Les Trentes Glorieuses- were like the best years ever. Looking at these charts you can see very distinctly why: redistribution of wealth was successful, people were working more, for more and everything was cool. Everything made sense.
I love to keep in mind that my grandparents and parents grew up and prospered with this environment. But you can already see on the first graph that at the start of the 60s, productivity was gaining traction faster than pay, thanks machines! It was almost invisible but it was happening. It’s amazing to see that it follows social progress or lack of: after 68-70 the hippie fantasy is over and oh, this is where we’re starting to get screwed with a productivity rising much faster than pay, again thanks to machines and social consciousness withdrawal.
But that was nothing. I’m born in 1979. Look at the motherfucking graph! The next 30 years define what it is to not give a fuck and screw people over. Now we’re talking.
Today, I mean it’s really hard to not think about giving up just about everything. Older generations don’t or barely understand the insane world, paradigm we live in: we are asked to be multi-talented, to work a lot for a small pay and to not be upset about the fact that we’re struggling to get a place to live. I mean, if all that stress and work were paying, I’d be OK with it. That’s what happened during the “Glorious Thirty” in France and the West.
But mastering so many skills, fighting for a good pay -within your company, with your client or with taxes- and fight to have a place, probably making yourself bleed to get it… It doesn’t make sense and I feel so angry about that. Because we obviously know the solutions but the system profits a bigger generation than ours…
The good part is, I think it made us tough as shit. We’re capable of facing problems, we’re starving to find solutions and truth, we’re extremely flexible and these are strengths that both generations around us -boomers and Yers- don’t really have. These are good survival skills so we shall continue to do our thing and just stick to it.
“The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with “career” be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?”
Douglas Rushkoff
Looking at the past 60 years and thinking about all the kids you guys are making, I’d say we need to shift pronto.