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- [00:01]
A
Welcome back, friends, to Economic Update Extra. This is where we pick up the conversation from our regular Economic Update program. And today we left off talking with Moumita Ahmed from Millennials for Revolution. And so I want to welcome her back to Economic Update Extra. So let's continue our conversation. I want to pick up on something that was an important part of Bernie Sanders campaign, not as often stressed as some of the other things he was famous for, but he did make a point in his economic program, I remember reading it, that he was in favor of more cooperation, more cooperatives in the economy, and that he felt it was important enough to stress the notion of work and other economic activities beside work being done in a cooperative way. That's very unusual in a capitalist society where, for example, words like struggle of the fittest or competition or things like that are the stress. So I wanted to know how millennials, particularly Millennials for Revolution, how do you think about cooperation or how do you feel about that point in Bernie's thinking and in terms of what you're going to be pushing for in your organization?
- [01:26]
B
I think we are definitely for a more cooperative economy or a cooperative democracy. I think given the time that we live in where we could potentially have a giant scarcity of resources due to the climate crisis, we need everybody to work together. And that starts within the workplace, especially if we're talking about the economy and the relationship between workers versus CEOs. Like, there needs to be something where there's sort of like a cooperation between, like, people at the top and at the bottom. And so I think also culturally, as Millennials, we're more open to that. Like, I know even in my neighborhood, we're talking about like a co op, like a garden for people to, like, plant vegetables and share. And I think that's a thing in Brooklyn all over. And so there's all these little things that are already happening where people are using sort of that cooperative democracy that you're talking about and injecting into everyday life. So I think as Millennials, we are definitely more about working with each other and living in a world where it's not about competition, but about working towards a better goal, where we all live comfortably and, you know, struggle.
- [02:53]
A
We have Dr. Harriet Frad, who comes on once a month on the program. And one of the themes she stresses is because she's a psychotherapist, a mental health counselor, is the loneliness of people in modern capitalist societies. And she likes to remind us that in England, it got so severe that they have a cabinet position called the minister for loneliness, because it's such a problem in England. My guess is, and Dr. Fraad says this, that the only difference between England and everywhere else in the capitalist world is they are at least honest enough to admit it, but that there is a kind of a loneliness that comes with this competitive everybody out for themselves, and that this interest in cooperation may be a very deep vein to mine for millennials, for revolution, that it may be a real deep hunger that all kinds of people have who aren't even aware of it. And so it occurred to us to wonder and ask your opinion whether there was an awareness that this is a theme that might become a very powerful organizing strategy, if you like, and how you would respond to that.
- [04:03]
B
Absolutely. I think this could become like, not only just an organizing strategy, but like a cultural change. Currently, capitalism has a cultural hegemony over with in the economy and in our way of life. And a lot of millennials were very well rounded. We've traveled around the world, we've gone out to do study abroad and all kinds of things. And, you know, other cultures have, within this, like, system of, like, working together and helping each other. Like, I know in my culture, like, there's this idea of, like, family and making sure that people are not feeling alienated, not feeling alone, and that we're all taking care of each other. And I think we're seeing that more and more in our generation, Especially this idea of, like, you know, you look at online and some of these, like, GoFundMes, as heartbreaking as they are, it's all millions of people donating to each other and helping each other out. Like, within our economy, there's these, like, little pockets of, like, cooperative efforts, efforts and things like that. And so it would be fair to.
- [05:15]
A
Say that your interest is in making more of that.
- [05:18]
B
Absolutely.
- [05:18]
A
Building on that.
- [05:19]
B
And the government actually helping, investing in these kinds of efforts. Yes.
- [05:25]
A
And is. Is it your sense that that Bernie is still for all that, that that continues to be part of his message as well?
- [05:33]
B
Yeah, absolutely. He, like, he lived in a caboose. Right.
- [05:37]
A
When he was young.
- [05:38]
B
Yes.
- [05:38]
A
Okay. All right. Another question. There's a lot of evidence that young people are less likely to get married, less likely to have children than people in the older age groups. Is that also your sense? And can you tell us a little bit about how that connects to what you're trying to do?
- [06:03]
B
Absolutely. I mean, I personally am not really thinking about those things. I can't. First of all, it's harder for our generation to own a home, and it's and if you're going to raise a family, you're going to need a home. And then the burden, you know, there's not. We don't have health care, universal health care. So, you know, having a child is an extra cost that most of us can't afford with high student loans, student. Student debt, credit card debt. And just like, in general, the economy's not really supportive of our generation enough for us to, like, take the, you know, take those. Now, they're risks because we can't afford it. But unlike previous generations, it's just impossible for most of us to have kids.
- [06:58]
A
So does that fuel the politics? In other words, the very realities you talked about, the debt, the inability to get a home, the inability to think in the way people used to about family and children and all of that, is that fueling the politics, making you critical of the system? I mean, it would seem to be.
- [07:18]
B
But absolutely, because it's a lot of pressure. Like, I get this pressure from my family, I get it from my colleagues. And so. And I'm sure everyone in our generation is exposed to that kind of pressure in one level or another. And because of that, we want to change the way people think. And the only way to do that is really change the system, both culturally and actually physically, and I guess also metaphorically. But so it is in our interest to change the way politics is done, because currently the culture, the system, everything is. So it's completely stacked against us, and that's why it is in our interest, because we have nothing to lose. That's the simple answer to that. We have nothing to lose. So we have to either change it or have to live with this.
- [08:16]
A
Yeah, tell me a little bit about student debt. You've mentioned it two or three times in our conversation today. Where does that come in? How does that fit into what motivates millennials? What drives them forward?
- [08:29]
B
Well, student debt, actually, majority of people in our generation have student debt, and it's very rare if you don't have it, and I would argue even older folks have student debt. And it's a huge problem because the rent is going up and everything else is becoming more and more expensive. And so on top that when you have to pay for pay student loans and there's an economy where jobs are very scarce, it puts us at a disadvantage. Majority of us, an entire generation of us. And the fact that 90% of these loans are administered by the government and that they're profiting, they're charging 6 to 7, 7 to 8% interest on people young People getting an education, it is just wrong because education is supposed to be a fundamental right, and it is supposed to be the. It's considered one of the only ways you can move up in society and establish some of the things we talked about, whether it's, you know, home, have children. Like, we can't do any of that if we can't get an education. But if getting an education means being, like, indebted and just broke for the rest of your life, it's a really tough position to be in. And so I think the student debt crisis, the fact that most of us haven't even paid off our principal balance just shows that there's a crisis, there's some sort of bubble or crash coming, at least in that direction. And it's very concerning that majority of our generation are stuck with that as a future.
- [10:16]
A
You know, I've been a professor of economics all my life, and one of the things the whole economics profession basically believes is that the future, the economic future we all face, that we will do better or worse, country by country, more. How well we do is more dependent on the quality and the quantity of educated young people than on anything else. I mean, those are the people who are going to invent the new products, develop the new technologies, come up with the new ideas that change the world. And a country that wants a future and doesn't support education for the mass of people is a country that's destroying itself. It's shooting itself in the foot, basically. It's crazy. And it's always been amazing to me that Americans seem to not want to face that. Other countries, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, subsidize public education, make it easier for young people to get a higher education, whereas we load up the burdens and the debts, making it harder. This is crazy. And since Americans are not crazy people, why would we be doing something so crazy? And I think an awful lot of people might be very hopeful that millennials may make the change that we kind of all know ought to have been made long ago.
- [11:43]
B
Right. And it's not like a new thing to forgive student loans. There are plenty of cultures in the past that have done it, like Rolling Jubilee, for example. It's actually. And you know this because you're an economics professor, so you probably know that forgiving loans, it's a way to sort of, like, renew the economy and give people that opportunity to sort of create a better world for themselves, invest more in, like, all of the things that help our society become a better educated society.
- [12:24]
A
Yeah. And there's also the Question that. Why in the world would you load up people with this sort of debt in the first place? I mean, we had a struggle in the 19th century in America to provide free public education from age 5 through the senior year in your high school. We didn't make people pay for it. It's a free public service, which we think. And everybody I know believes this transformed the United States, made it an educated country, which is why every other country in the world does this. And why you would stop at the 12th grade because of some magical number 12 rather than continuing it is a kind of mystery to me.
- [13:02]
B
Yeah. And another thing, we supported a campaign called College for All in California. And during that campaign, we found out that if we were to just go back to taxing the wealthy, 1%, the tax that we. Well, sorry, let me rephrase. So if we just go back to the tax cuts from the Bush era, I mean, for the wealthy tax to the wealthy, then we can fund everyone in California. We can make sure they all go to college for free state colleges. So it's incredible to me. It's just mind boggling. It's hard for me to even understand why, why they wouldn't just do that. Because we did have. It's not like we never had free college here or affordable college here. So in America in the past, my.
- [13:56]
A
First job teaching was at the City University of New York here, which at that time was free. And it was very proud that it had been going for 100 years here in New York City, the only free university system in the country. Country. Very, very successful, produced loads of Nobel Prize winners and so on. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. And I think I share much of my audience's view that we are very happy that there's millennials for revolution and that you will hopefully be successful in changing the country in ways that it badly needs. And thank you all for joining us. We are particularly grateful to our Patreon community for the support they provide. It makes all of this possible. Thank you again.