Gen Give

document.write(" serif;">I call them GenGive.

Will they vote? Don't count on it.

Will they work? Yes – both hard and well. But not at a job the old economy offers them.

Will they consume? Yes, but in a way designed to change and even dismantle our consumer economy.

Who are they? Privileged and poor. 18 to 40. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of Boomers and Gens X, Y, and Next. What distinguishes them is that they don't listen to us. They don't buy in.

When we say finish your degree or start in the mailroom they smile and say sure but they see clear-eyed what we do not: our top-heavy social structure doesn't want them.

The Ivies want super-people purpose-bred from birth. The economy wants super-people, too. Only the best will do. So either you're super or you work as an associate in soul-destroying work for less than a living wage.

They, the living middle, are having none of that.

They understand their job is to give – to do good honest work with good intention, bringing to the world the fruit of their God-given gifts.

What is their manifesto?

 

Let me do the work I was designed to do. Let me, as Aristotle would say, desire the right thing, and do my work well.

 

Whether this faltering economy offers them the opportunity to do so is a matter of indifference to them. They will make their own opportunities.

 

Chris