First of all, the Baby Boom Generation is the demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is most often defined as individuals born between 1946 and 1964, during the post–World War II baby boom.
The preceding generation, the Silent Generation is defined as individuals born between 1928 and 1945. This generation was comparatively small because the financial insecurity of the 1930s and the war in the early 1940s caused people to have fewer children.
The modern welfare state was initiated in the United Kingdom with the National Insurance Act in 1945, creating compulsory contributions from employees and relief for unemployment, death, sickness, and retirement, followed by laws shortly afterwards to provide cover from the "cradle to the grave". All this was initiated while Britain was burdened with a 400% debt to GDP, due to the Second World War, a huge amount, and it was achieved through political will and immensely talented politicians, almost entirely from the Labour Party, and the foresight of a generation that understood the value of solidarity in any human endeavour.
(That said, the Spanish Second Republic long before, in 1931, brought in popular sovereignty and universal suffrage, freedom of meeting, association, and expression, divorce, co-education of
boys and girls and the end of religion as a mandatory subject taught in schools, among other things.)
In the USA the beginnings of a true welfare state, brought in by the F D Roosevelt government (1933-1945) were well initiated but effectively pushed back later on by the far Right.
The Silent Generation was a small, motivated and solidarious generation that won the rights that we most value now. It was an altruistic generation that had gone through a terrible war, with the spirit of them being all in it together.
They were followed by the Baby Boomers in two large demographic waves: the first cohort from 1946 to 1955 was far larger than the second from 1956-1964. Both have proved to be staggeringly selfish and lacking in empathy (especially the first cohort), short-sighted (both) and intellectually inept (especially the second). The successful 1987 film Wall Street emblemized the Baby Boomer creed with Gordon Gekko saying, "Greed is good", and telling us that it was all a game. Trickle Down Theory could never have worked but it sounded good to greedy people, that all would benefit from each of us grabbing as much as we could. Many of the most influential of them avidly gobbled up turgid prose and half-baked ideas from Ayn Rand that gave credence to their inner desires, that selfishness and lack of consideration were good things in the greater scheme of things.
During their lives the Baby Boomers, especially the first cohort, have ruled the roost every time they've voted, whether they voted for Ronald Reagan (President of the USA in 1981) or Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister of the UK in 1979), and when they later voted for Bill Clinton in the US or Tony Blair in the UK.
Reagan and Thatcher brought in the entirely common-sense idea that a government should balance its books. It sounded good, although it is in fact grossly unfair. The same large generation that had cost a previous generation so much to nurture and educate, when it came to their productive years, the years they would pay taxes, voted to reduce those taxes and "balance the books". Not a word about balancing the books when they have retired, and they are once again a massive drain to the state (pensions are 13% of GDP in the EU, not taking into account healthcare, free public transport or other costs). During decades, states were hollowed out, ensuring that politicians in the main represent the Corporate Party and that welfare and decent jobs are now absent for large parts of the population.
The second cohort has been passive to an extreme, generally being led by the first on all matters of opinion. Generations that have followed have been small enough to ensure that their political opinions are irrelevant, leading all but the old to be entirely passive as concerns voting and politics. At this stage, many of the second cohort have not yet reached retirement age and some may have potentially little pension to look forward to nor substantial savings, unlike those of the first cohort.
These years have been of neoliberalism, of sociopathic leaders supporting imperial and corporate interests, and have been years of shocking corruption and decadence. It is a well-known fact that left-wingers and young people do not vote in the main, in many cases because they are the same people and time has shown them that nothing will ever change whether they vote or not. The official left-wing opposition is left-wing in name only, it talks the talk but does not walk the walk. There is so much money from vested interests mixed up in politics and the mainstream media that it would be difficult to imagine any politician who won power being in a condition to change things anyway.
The result of all this greed, competitiveness and self-preening has been the trashing of the lives of those that are weak, be it other people or those unfortunate animals that come into our cross-hairs. A generation has trashed the environment, ditched hard-won human rights, waged constant war, voted for unbelievable corruption, denied later generations a decent education beyond regurgitating useless data, and by its sheer force of numbers made sure that nothing ever changes, at least until it is no longer around to face the music.
And now we have the mother-of-all economic crises upon us, brought about by the mother-of-all pandemic propagandas (and I wonder if that itself was caused by the underlying mother-of-all climate crises). We are happily ditching the economic future of the young and those of working age in order to supposedly safeguard the health of the very old and infirm, locked up and terrified as they are, watching scary TV on their own, hour after hour. The rest of us, those who still had a future a couple of weeks ago, are being thrown into the trash can, and for nothing. Because once again, the Baby Boomers have got it all wrong and they are being taken for a ride.
They are at it again!
