Probably not. I'm 59, it's been talked about my entire life, in two countries. Governments are unwilling to fundamentally reorganize the basics of property ownership and building to help their citizens lead better (or even reasonable) lives, but they will go the extra mile or three to make sure that a mass of young and angry protestors do not get what they want.
That's just categorically false. There are quite a few countries that do this very thing, like Austria.
But if that's true, then Vienna is just one of the handful of the exceptions that prove the rule.
The fact that there's a city in Austria that behaves differently to most governments in most parts of the world does not invalidate the point I was making.
says nearly every generation of ideal-minded and dissatisfied young people fwiw
Boomers were once a very liberal generation.
In general, there's a housing shortage, but there are many places with a surplus. They are marked in purple/blue on the map in this article.
18 to 24-year olds still punch in around two-thirds weight at the voting booth [1]. Protesting is useless without the ballot-box threat; absent it, the politically savvy move is to crack down and preserve voters’ benefits.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096299/voter-turnout-pr...
Hong Kong just did it. They weren't successful.
Brazil a decade ago was also driven by cost of living and they won.
US? I don't know. Occupy Wall Street was eradicated with terrifying efficiency. I'm not that optimistic about social movements here.
I dropped by Occupy a few times. They did themselves in by failing to specify demands. All form and no substance.
The media did a pretty good job of depicting people being dragged away by riot police screaming as hippies getting bored and leaving.
Those are so vague as to be meaningless, and so sweeping as to be quixotic. Protests always fail when there is not a clear and attainable path to success. This is something successful movements understand, and unsuccessful ones don't.
They want that number to be pushed down.
Are you under the impression that this is a complicated demand?
No, it isn’t. Let’s start with scoping. Everyone in America is immeasurably better off than the median in some countries. Clearly not what anyone in Zuccotti Park meant.
> Are you under the impression that this is a complicated demand?
Are you under the impression it’s not? It would push down inequality to remove student loan and public transport subsidies in cities and cut cheques to the poorest rural Americans. That’s obviously not what was wanted by those protesters.
1. This is not a logical argument - it is a red herring combined with whataboutism (forget American gini! whatabout global gini?!).
2. If you take into account that they have to pay rent in America, go to college in America and pay for medical care in America the median American may live in the richest country in the world but that doesn't make them the richest median citizens. Not even close.
>Are you under the impression it’s not?
Of course. I'm not the one playing dumb for political effect here.
>It would push down inequality ... to cut cheques to the poorest rural Americans. That’s obviously not what was wanted by those protesters.
No, it is. And the US establishment violently crushed the protest precisely because this is the furthest thing from their preferred outcome.
I'm guessing you approved?
This isn’t an ask. It’s a general grievance.
> media did a pretty good job of depicting people being dragged away by riot police screaming as hippies getting bored and leaving
I was there. Never saw screaming people dragged around. Did see tear gas, which isn’t nice. Not saying it didn’t happen, but it wasn’t common. Mostly, people were yelling at each other about stuff being stolen from their tents.
It's pretty obviously both.
>I was there. Never saw screaming people dragged around. Did see tear gas, which isn’t nice
Thats the system using violence to defend itself. Just like in Russia.
It’s not. “Redistribute wealth” isn’t a policy. It’s better than money in politics, though, because we don’t even have consensus on what that means.
This is what policy looks like, even in general terms:
1) More-progressive taxation 2) Universal healthcare 3) Closing New York’s LLC loophole (done)
Et cetera. Unfortunately, delineating these policies, agreeing to them internally and then messaging on them externally is a lot more work than spouting general grievances.
> the system using violence to defend itself. Just like in Russia.
It’s the system clearing a public park. Nobody cared what people were asking for at that point, the place smelled of piss.
You lost credibility with the false comparison with Russia, but I think you know that.
Sounds like a political issue to me.
65% of Americans own a home. Making housing more affordable means taking an axe to their net worth. That's why it won't happen.
It’s also hard to protest if you are scraping by, and a long commitment to protesting means you lose your job
Capitalism sadly wins far too often for me to think this is achievable