The Generation Gap

Abstract

The "generation gap" between youth and adults in contemporary American society reflects a real and serious conflict of interest rather than mutual misunderstanding. In an open, bureaucratic society, sanctions against nepotism and the attrition of property through inheritance taxes lessen the utility of each generation to the other: the young cannot suc ceed. Youth, moreover, is a discriminated-against minority in America—more seriously so than any ethnic minority. It is excluded from economic opportunity, and is seriously exploited by being forced to supply, as members of the Armed Forces, its services at a fraction of their market value. School atten dance is less obviously exploitive, but is as much a forced sub sidy of the social and economic system by the young as "an opportunity to invest in the future." Compulsory school at tendance, the juvenile court system, and the Selective Service System all operate as serious, age-graded constraints from which adults are exempt—these constraints, indeed, define youth as a social role. Informal and often abusive constraint by schools and law-enforcement officials exacerbate the conflict. The humiliation of, particularly, youth from the upper-middle and upper classes, especially those prone to dissent, is functional in preventing the disruption of a democratic society by the hostili ties of the "lumpenbourgeoisie."