The report confirmed many people’s suspicions about the “British disease,” in the process raising doubts about the Anglo-American model of progress in general. […] our continental cousins can’t help but notice that many of these behaviours debuted in Anglo-American cultures.

But what if the behaviour of broken British children is less a violent reaction to their inadequate pasts than calculated defiance against their hopeless futures? Looking ahead, demographers and sociologists have begun to map out the downward trajectory on the bell curve called “progress.” They’ve spotted trouble – the kind of trouble that may already be written in the faces of today’s teens’ older siblings. In their Class of 2005 survey, LSE economist Nick Bosanquet, along with Blair Gibbs of the independent think tank Reform, branded Britain’s under-35s the “ipod Generation” – insecure, pressured, over-taxed and debt-ridden. Warning that Britain was at a generational tipping point when it came to quality of life, they argued, “The common perception is that today’s young people have it easy. But the true position of young people is thrown into stark relief when compared to their parents . . . who enjoyed many advantages of which the younger generation can now only dream, including a generous welfare state, free universal higher education, secure pensions and a substantial rise in housing equity which has augmented their lifetime savings.”

[…] It now takes them until 34, on average, before they can afford a house, let alone have a family of their own.

[…] Perhaps we are seeing the scary sight of a generation that has been rather brutal in getting its own way squeezing everything it can out of its children. […] economic and social policy now conducted is little less than a conspiracy by the middle-aged against the young.

Quelle: Generation F*cked: How Britain is Eating Its Young