I think the reason Polly Toynbee’s analysis “nearly caused a riot” is because it is so obviously wrong-headed (My generation is sucking Britain’s young people dry. Why are politicians too scared to admit it?, 14 February). The substitution of “generation” as an analytical tool over and above drivers of inequality such as class, race and gender will inevitably lead to the dead end of “ideas ... for relieving older people of their accretions of unearned asset wealth”.
Not all older people have unearned asset wealth. The generation of working-class people thrown on to the dole by Margaret Thatcher have no such assets. Neither do their children. If you grew up in poverty, you will likely stay in poverty, and so will your children. The key factor is not age but class. The idea of a social contract wherein each generation is better off than the last assumes that the class interests of the most powerful do not militate against that. The redistribution of wealth from poor to rich over the decades since the 1970s suggests otherwise. The argument that the struggle over redistribution is an intergenerational one confuses both what’s at stake and the forces required to change things.
Nick Moss
London
