The bottom is rising

Young people are beginning to realise something that previous generations rarely had to face: the economic system no longer works for them.

In this video, I begin with an unexpected political message from the United States. A Democratic Senate candidate from Maine, Troy Jackson, summed up today’s politics in a single sentence:

“We are from the bottom, and we are rising.”

That phrase opens up a much bigger discussion.

To do so, I look at why millions of graduates in India cannot find work, why corruption has intensified young people’s anger there, why young people in Britain increasingly question whether university is worthwhile, and why apprenticeships and decent jobs have become so difficult to obtain.

More importantly, I ask why this has happened.

Is this simply bad luck, or have governments and central banks deliberately created an economy that keeps unemployment high, house prices out of reach, and opportunities increasingly scarce?

This, though, is also a discussion about two very different ways of thinking.

Top-down thinking begins with ideology and forces reality to fit it.

Bottom-up thinking begins with people’s lives and asks what actually needs to change.

If we continue denying younger generations hope, they will eventually demand change.

The real question is whether today’s political and economic institutions are prepared for the moment when their top-down thinking fails, and the bottom-up thinkers amongst our young people overthrow them?