Intergenerational Warfare: Who Stole the Millennials’ Future?代際沖突：誰偷走了千禧一代的未來？

戴維·威利茨

Two new books， The Theft of a Decade and Stop Mugging Grandma， examine the divide. 《被偷走的那十年》和《別再啃老了》剖析這一差異。

Class used to predict how people would vote in Britain and elsewhere—in 1974 if you were a member of the working class you were three times more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. Now the distribution of votes by class in the UK is almost even between Labour and Conservative： the new divide is by age. In the 1970s， 40 per cent of voters supported Labour in almost every age group. Age was a political irrelevance. But by the 2017 general election it had become a key driver of how someone votes. A 30-year-old was almost twice as likely to vote Labour as a 70-year-old， and a 70-year-old twice as likely to vote Tory as a 30-year-old.

This political divide reflects an underlying economic reality. Older people own the wealth—housing and pensions. And now， for the first time in British history， pensioner incomes after housing costs have caught up with those of working-age families. All this has put fairness between the generations high on the political agenda. So both parties promise to get more houses built for young people.

Joseph Sternberg and Jennie Bristow take diametrically1 opposite approaches to this in two new books on the subject on intergenerational economics. Sternberg’s The Theft of a Decade is full of evidence， mainly from the US， which shows the scale of the problem. In particular he shows how the financial crash of 2008 has hit young people particularly hard and the policy response to it in turn has boosted the assets of older generations， widening the gap with the young.

Bristow’s approach is very different. In Stop Mugging Grandma she treats “generationalism” not as an economic fact but a pernicious2 social and cultural narrative.

British social thinkers are familiar with differences of class， gender and ethnicity as powerful tools for explaining economic differences. Compared to them， Bristow regards the accident of when you were born as rather trivial. She argues it is a device to hide the shared interest in， for example， good pensions and divert attention from real economic problems—such as an insecure low-wage labour market—which are nothing to do with the generation you belong to.

But when you were born does matter. The formative experiences that shape people’s view of politics often occur during their early twenties. Those born after the second world war who came of age in the 1960s enjoyed rising wages without competition in a global labour market from workers in developing countries

While entering the labour market after the 2008 financial crisis may have permanently scarred the millennials， Sternberg also cites evidence that it affects lifetime consumption patterns too.

That is the decade which Sternberg rightly says has been taken from the millennials. Being born into a big cohort like the baby boomers—roughly those born between 1946 and 1964—gives you greater power in the marketplace and the ballot box so you can shape society to favour your generation.

Government policies themselves are littered with age rules： it is a political choice that a 21-year-old travelling to work on London transport pays full fare but a 61-year-old travels for free. It was a political decision to protect pensioner benefits with the so-called triple lock3 that ensures British pensioners enjoy benefits rising by a minimum of 2.5 per cent， average earnings growth or inflation， whichever is highest， while imposing a freeze4 on benefits for families of working age.

Behind these political choices are judgments about who is deserving—and who votes. Drawing attention to these decisions is not promoting generational warfare， it is asking whether we are really delivering fairness between the generations.

Young people are rightly sceptical that in 50 years they will in turn benefit from generous policies for pensioners because there might be different spending priorities then. The evidence so far is that the big generation of boomers have enjoyed policies favouring the young when they were young and policies rebalanced to the old when they are older.

Meanwhile， the millennials are caricatured5 for consuming avocado toast instead of saving. Yet the evidence is that their consumption on holidays or eating out is actually growing less than affluent boomers. When the boomers were young in the 1980s， people aged 25–34 consumed roughly the same amount as people aged 55–64. Now they are aged 55–64， the younger generation coming along behind are consuming 15 per cent less than them.

Boomers have defined benefit pensions payable after a certain age， so as they live longer the value of the pension goes up. Millennials have defined contribution pensions with a fixed pot6 of money that will pay out less per year as their life expectancy rises. And trying to save earnings for a deposit on a house illustrates when the rise in assets relative to incomes shifts from an economic abstraction to a personal reality—it would have taken a typical young Boomer family about three years to save for a deposit whereas now it takes 19.

That is why the biggest， boldest thing we have to do is boost property ownership among the younger generation. It happened in Britain in the 1980s with the sale of publicly owned council houses and access to shares in privatised industries. We need a contemporary version of that—one option is a capital endowment of perhaps ￡10，000 when a young person reaches the age of 30. Otherwise we will face a young generation of the dispossessed.

在英國和其他地方，過去往往可以通過選民所屬階級預(yù)測其投票傾向——在1974年，如果你是工人階級的一員，你給工黨投票的可能性是保守黨的三倍?，F(xiàn)在，英國不同階級給工黨和保守黨投票的分配幾乎是均勻的：新的差異是按年齡劃分的。在20世紀(jì)70年代，幾乎所有年齡段都有40%的選民支持工黨。彼時(shí)，年齡與政治無關(guān)。但到了2017年的大選，年齡已經(jīng)成為影響人們投票的關(guān)鍵因素。一個(gè)30歲的選民給工黨投票的可能性幾乎是70歲選民的兩倍，而一個(gè)70歲選民給保守黨投票的可能性是30歲選民的兩倍。

這一政治差異反映了潛在的經(jīng)濟(jì)現(xiàn)實(shí)。老年人擁有財(cái)富——住房和養(yǎng)老金。如今，在減去住房成本后，養(yǎng)老金領(lǐng)取者的收入已經(jīng)趕上了工薪家庭的收入，這在英國歷史上還是第一次。所有這些都使得代際公平成為一個(gè)熱點(diǎn)政治議題。所以兩黨都承諾要為年輕人建造更多住房。

約瑟夫·斯特恩伯格和珍妮·布里斯托在他們關(guān)于代際經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)這一主題的新書中選取截然相反的切入點(diǎn)來探討這一問題。斯特恩伯格在其《被偷走的那十年》一書中大量引用證據(jù)（主要來自美國），以彰顯問題的嚴(yán)重程度。他特別說明了2008年的金融危機(jī)對年輕人造成了特別嚴(yán)重的影響，而政府的應(yīng)對政策繼而增加了老一輩的資產(chǎn)，擴(kuò)大了年輕人與老一輩之間的差距。

布里斯托的切入點(diǎn)則非常不同。在《別再啃老了》一書中，她指出“世代主義”不是一個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)事實(shí)，而是一個(gè)對社會和文化都有害的說辭。

英國社會思想家習(xí)慣將階級、性別和種族的差異作為解釋經(jīng)濟(jì)差異的有力工具。與這些因素相比，布里斯托認(rèn)為人們何時(shí)出生這一不可預(yù)測之事相當(dāng)無關(guān)緊要。她認(rèn)為，這是一種隱藏共同利益（如豐厚的養(yǎng)老金）并轉(zhuǎn)移人們對實(shí)際經(jīng)濟(jì)問題（如缺乏保障的低工資勞動(dòng)力市場）的注意力的手段——這些問題與你所屬的世代并無干系。

但是你何時(shí)出生確實(shí)很重要。塑造人們政治觀的重要經(jīng)歷往往發(fā)生在20出頭的時(shí)候。第二次世界大戰(zhàn)后出生的人在20世紀(jì)60年代成年，他們沒受到全球勞動(dòng)力市場上來自發(fā)展中國家工人的競爭威脅，享受工資上漲的福利。

在2008年金融危機(jī)之后進(jìn)入勞動(dòng)力市場可能已經(jīng)給千禧一代帶來永久性創(chuàng)傷。斯特恩伯格還引用證據(jù)表明這影響了千禧一代的終身消費(fèi)模式。

這是千禧一代被偷走的十年——斯特恩伯格這點(diǎn)說的沒錯(cuò)。嬰兒潮一代（大致是1946年至1964年間出生的人）在市場競爭和投票中有更多話語權(quán)，從而可以影響社會，使其惠及同代人。

政府政策本身充斥著年齡規(guī)則：在倫敦，21歲的公民乘坐交通工具上班需支付全額票價(jià)，而61歲的公民則可以免費(fèi)出行，這是一項(xiàng)政治決策。通過所謂的三重保障來保護(hù)養(yǎng)老金領(lǐng)取者的福利，這是一項(xiàng)政治決定—— “三道鎖”確保英國養(yǎng)老金領(lǐng)取者的福利增幅可在最低2.5%、平均薪資漲幅和通貨膨脹率這三者中擇最高者享受，而工薪家庭的福利卻固定不變。

這些政治決策的背后是關(guān)于誰應(yīng)該得到福利以及誰在投票的判斷。聚焦這些政策并不是要激發(fā)代際沖突，而是要探討我們是否真的做到了代際公平。

年輕人有充分理由懷疑，50年后他們是否可以從慷慨的養(yǎng)老金政策中受益，因?yàn)閷脮r(shí)優(yōu)先支出事項(xiàng)可能會有所不同。截至目前的證據(jù)都顯示，人口眾多的嬰兒潮一代在年輕時(shí)享受了有利于年輕人的政策，而在他們年老時(shí)政策又重新平衡到優(yōu)待老年人上。

與此同時(shí)，千禧一代又被丑化為不重儲蓄、只顧消費(fèi)的一代人。然而有證據(jù)表明，他們在度假或外出就餐時(shí)的消費(fèi)增長實(shí)際上比富裕的嬰兒潮一代更少。在20世紀(jì)80年代，當(dāng)嬰兒潮一代年輕時(shí)，25—34歲的人消費(fèi)水平與55—64歲的人大致相同。而現(xiàn)在他們年齡處在55—64歲之間，年輕一代的消費(fèi)水平卻比他們低15%。

嬰兒潮一代在一定年齡后享受養(yǎng)老金固定收益，隨著壽命的延長，養(yǎng)老金的價(jià)值就會上升。而千禧一代采用養(yǎng)老金固定繳款制度，資金庫總額是固定的，因而隨著他們的預(yù)期壽命增加，每年給付的金額就會減少。年輕人努力存錢以支付房屋定金，說明資產(chǎn)相對于收入的增長從一個(gè)抽象的經(jīng)濟(jì)概念轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)閭€(gè)人現(xiàn)實(shí)問題——過去一個(gè)典型的年輕嬰兒潮家庭要花費(fèi)大約三年的時(shí)間來存夠房屋定金，而現(xiàn)在的年輕人需要19年。

這就是為什么我們要做的最重大、最大膽的事情就是增加年輕一代的財(cái)產(chǎn)所有權(quán)。20世紀(jì)80年代，英國公有的議會大廈可供出售，私有行業(yè)的股份也可購買。我們需要一個(gè)當(dāng)代版本——一個(gè)做法是給年滿30歲的年輕人提供1萬英鎊的資金資助。否則我們將會面臨著年輕一代一無所有的境況。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎(jiǎng)選手）