Generation Y's Wall Street SPO

This post was written by Zoe Mendelson, 21, who is trying to do more with less in NYC. She is an author of "RED the Book," a collection of essays written by 58 American teenage girls, available in paperback.

This weekend, I headed down from my dorm at Barnard College with a few friends to the Occupy Wall Street rally. We were giddy on the way -- all those people our age showing up in the name of activism -- but the whole thing turned out to be a bit of a bust.

As one friend put it, "It's unfortunate when you agree with a mission enough to go to the event, and then some people take it as an opportunity to dance around in their fairy wings."

I respect the drive behind OWS. But reading the signs down there, the Gen Y wish seemed to be for someone to come along and sprinkle the magical dust of democracy over a diffuse collection of complaints: No blood for oil, no more racism, stop homophobia. Greed is bad. Life's not fair.

Yes, I agree. Saying so, however, will not make a 60-something CEO decide he just doesn't deserve his salary, or drive the drug companies to slash their prices. It won't reset an income gap that has been degrading our dead democracy for decades, or halt the force of globalization that siphons off jobs, or reverse the impending ruin of our health care and education systems.

If the goal of the movement is to bring about great social reform, isn't it easier to start with the sector of society that's less set in its ways?

What can we, as twentysomething Americans, do to fight the greed and disparity? And more intriguingly, what might we possibly be doing to perpetuate it? About the only pot I didn't hear or see stirred down there was one assuming even the smallest share of culpability for this mess we're in.

Growing up, we (the middle-class protesters) got to be sleepy. We answered no great call. We just had to follow instructions and try to look cool. We looked forward to moving comfortably into our parents' roles.

Turns out, our quiet consumer lives wreaked a lot of havoc, behind the scenes here and overseas. The lifestyle we inherited has proven unsustainable: What will we do with ourselves when we stumble out of school with five-figure debts into a barren job market? The career-family-home-car-vacations that we conditioned ourselves to expect will not materialize. Our lives will be less full of the petroleum-based staples that we were raised to consider markers of success.

What has come of this incongruity? Fear, dissatisfaction, and anger on a grand scale -- that vaguely targets the deep-rooted institutions that aren't apt to budge.

This mess is too hot to sleep on, particularly under a wet tarp in a park. I say we skip that part by re-envisioning our futures and redefining success, before it's too late.

Forget the CEOs and IPOs and HMOs; they're lost causes. I'm talking about an SPO for my generation, a six-step satisfaction paradigm overhaul. It could look like this:

1. Admit that we have a problem. Hi, we are Generation Y, and we are overly entitled consumption addicts with expectations that are incongruous with a finite world.
2. Put our unprecedented talent as consumers toward good. We may be young impassioned liberals, but we rarely act on our ideals. We beg for cars as soon as we turn sixteen. We continue to buy from multinational clothing brands, despite their widely known questionable labor practices. We have adopted a defeatist attitude, complaining about the power of big money. Big money is just lots of small money put together. And P.S., as young adults we constitute a major chunk of the market. Quit with the cars already and get a bike. Or better yet, sell your car, and buy bikes for the kids in your neighborhood. Stop thinking of your clothes as trendy and disposable, and therefore picking them up at prices that surely reveal a sweatshop somewhere. Shop at the farmers' market. Bother to move your IKEA couch with you when you go. Share consumer goods like vacuums and food processors instead of buying everything new. Learn a trade. Barter. Feel good about it.
3. End your one first-hand relationship with Wall Street. Bank Transfer Day is coming up November. Take your money, however little it is, out of the banks that invest in fracking and Monsanto. Put it in a credit union that helps create a sustainable local economy and provides financial services to the traditionally underserved. Psst: "underserved" is a euphemism for poor, and that is going to be you soon.
4. You're over 18 -- act like it. Vote. Start voting in local elections. Local-level politics present the quickest route to change in your community.
5. Create a job for yourself. There's never been more work to do in this country, and we're the generation equipped with the energy and technological prowess to do it. Make it your job to try to solve our problems. Make it your generational pride that you're not striving for the same things your parents did. Now here's the key: In order to take advantage of this grand opportunity, most of us will have to accept a lower material standard of living. This is easiest to swallow when you recognize that our standard of living was shamefully high in the first place.
6. Live together. Cohabitation is a solution to the housing crisis that's entirely within your reach. And I have to say, in a world where relationships have been so reshaped by technology -- where we socialize alone on the Internet, and constant contact seems to keep us so far apart -- increasingly communal living does not sound bad. If we all end up sharing living quarters into our 40s it would probably do us some good. Look where our radical individualism has gotten us.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Stefanie Iris Weiss]

04:50 PM on 10/29/2011

I'm afraid you're not listening closely enough to #OWS. You may have gone down there to see the spectacle, but if you stayed for General Assembly you might have learned something valuable. The protesters have not just started a worldwide movement, they are mirroring direct democracy every single day, and you are free to be there to experience the horizontal, transparent, and open--to-everyone sessions. Sure, white, suburban kids need to admit their privilege and get off the teat of consumption. That's nothing new to the people who have been out on the streets putting their bodies on the line for democracy since the 1999 anti-globalization movement, and then the anti-war movement, and now, OWS. Read the materials available on the occupywallstreet.org site, follow GA's on Twitter if you can't be there. But don't dismiss something you clearly don't understand based on one afternoon of visiting Zuccotti Park and looking at some signs. Also, regarding your reference to pot -- there is a strict, enforced anti-drug policy at the park. So whatever you saw/smelled didn't come from movement people, it came from interlopers.

[Rush Libraughl 83]

04:12 PM on 10/27/2011

I say we just don't vote for anyone over the age of 35 has an MBA or a law degree from ivy league school or has too many friends and associates that fit that description.

No matter how you slice it, red, blue, liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican. Old people (mostly men) with MBAs and law degrees from ivy league schools have screwed us all. Stop asking the oppressors to stop oppressing. Just ask someone else that doesn't fit the "oppressor-like" description above, or become a candidate yourself.

Sure the old folks will say "this guy has no experience" etc. But hey everyone with no experience has been screwing things up. Lets risk it with the inexperienced and let them learn along the way to become experience in moving forward and away of our current direction.

Take a note from Blue Ocean Strategy. Let's leave behind the politicians we know today and competing for their blessing, attention and ears and just bolster our own candidates and vote them in. Eventually the leaders of old will become irrelevant.

I mean...Tea Party had their own candidates. Lets go! Occupy Congress!

[HAlexandria]

01:08 PM on 10/28/2011

I think that's a good step - No voting for old people with MBAs and/or law degrees, I'd go one step further and say no voting for business owners as they only serve themselves.

[BSeaver]

05:00 PM on 10/27/2011

Love the idea of getting expectations in line with reality. Like not expecting $70,000 a year for your first job out of college.

[Rene McQueen]

04:05 PM on 10/28/2011

Depends on your major. A 3.5 at a top engineering school with co-op and intern experience was a golden ticket to work at Google for more than that for a friend of mine. It's wrong to think you will make near that with a degree in underwater basket weaving while partying your way through school.

[JosephLavoieJr]

12:51 PM on 11/01/2011

Yeah, read some of the articles of HuffPo about the dearth of scientists and engineers. For some reason none of my nerdy friends and I are looking for work, and we all live quite comfortably...

[branchisole]

03:20 PM on 10/27/2011

Activism with a plan, now there's a thought.

[WI Patriot]

02:42 PM on 10/27/2011

Another tibit for Gen Y: No Bachelors degree is worth more than $30k of debt......

None.

Occupy your Univeristy citing academic greed....

[Sahuaro]

08:53 PM on 10/27/2011

My kneejerk response is to enthusiastically agree, but given a choice between a debt free Bachelor's at State U. and a Bachelor's with $30k debt from Harvard, I'd back off from "None".

Of course, very few if any get to make that choice.

[Tully Rand]

09:11 PM on 10/27/2011

Actually most Harvard grads finish school with almost no debt. Harvard provides need based financial assistance, which allows those without the cash to pay tuition to attend the university at little to no cost to them. Students are far more likely to graduate 30K in debt from a state university. Besides debt, these students receive a far less prestigious degree and enjoy fewer job prospects than Ivy League grads (unless they choose their majors wisely and perform exceptionally well in their studies). Needless to say this puts the average state university graduate at a huge disadvantage as they attempt to jump into the working world.

[WI Patriot]

02:39 PM on 10/27/2011

According to he Congressional Budget Office - the Top 1% is middle class also.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/income_ranges.pdf

[JustinP213]

01:17 AM on 10/29/2011

No way. Someone who makes over 300 k is not in the middle class.

[WI Patriot]

01:38 AM on 10/29/2011

They aint millionares - they are upper middle class son.

If you have to work, you are in the middle class....

[italianadventure]

12:07 PM on 10/27/2011

The article was great until you came up with the "invest in Monsanto" remark. Yeah, invest in a company that specializes in ripping off 3rd World farmers and poisoning people. Good job.

[LitDr2B]

12:36 PM on 10/27/2011

That's not what she said: She said to take your money -out- of the banks that invest in Monsanto and fracking.

[pterodactylcompound]

12:53 PM on 10/27/2011

The article is actually saying to take your money out of banks that invest in fracking and Monsanto.