The rain was a welcome reprieve over the weekend after the baking heat last week. This summer’s temperature has certainly given the press plenty to write about, and the Extinction Rebellion crowd cause to litter Central London with stickers. But though it may be summer, we’re slowly entering another season – one set to last an awful lot longer.
The eternal September
The early days of the internet were an era of adventure. It was an unknown new world, to be charted by explorers in the spirit of Francis Drake. There were no police, or laws – it was an electronic frontier.
The communities that emerged on this frontier slowly developed their own customs and social codes. As the rate of new users coming online was gradual, they would quickly adopt this “netiquette”, or get bored and leave.
But in September 1993, AOL, or America Online, began an aggressive mailing campaign to get more people online. It sent floppy disks and CD-ROMs out to millions of Americans with free trials of AOL.
Before then, the majority of new internet users arrived in the September of each year – these were 1st year students gaining access to the internet through their universities and colleges. Generally, these students would quickly learn and adopt the customs and “netiquette” of the internet, or they’d just get bored and leave. Either way, the online culture was maintained. This process each September became routine, as the old hands got used to integrating new users.
However, the sheer quantity of newcomers introduced by AOL was too much for the old community to take – there was nowhere near enough old hands available to integrate them all. The netiquette was trampled over by the new guard, and the old culture collapsed, to be superseded by a new order born on the now rapidly expanding user base.
The population of the internet would only accelerate from there. The AOL campaign was a success, and ever more people continue to join the internet following that fateful September. From the perspective of the old guard, it’s as though that September of 1993 never ended. The inflow of new users, which used to tail off after the students had come aboard, just hasn’t stopped since. As a result, it’s referred to by those who were online before as “the September that never ended”, with life online as “eternal September”.
This replacement of the old guard, a “changing of the seasons” as the old guard lose control to a younger one, is nothing new. But it’s a dynamic that is bound to surprise the old guard…
Rise of the Sons of Summer
Imagine an entire generation raised at a time without conflict, without risk. What kind of lives are they likely to lead? What would they assume that the prior generation didn’t assume? And that’s why generations are important. Our location in history shapes our attitudes, our behaviour…
These generations [such as Boomers] raised just after a crisis, invariably come of age during the great Awakenings. And late in life as senior leaders, take the nation into and through the next crisis. And that’s how to tie history together.
– John Howe, in an interview with Real Vision
The story of the “September that never ended” will soon be repeated, though in a different context. This time, it will not be the early adopters of the internet, knocked from their perch by those with a free trial of AOL. Instead, it will be the baby boomers, who will be permanently pushed from their perch in politics.
The boomers have enjoyed decades of dominance at the ballot box and been able to direct the money hose of the state accordingly. But the generational season is changing, and the boomers will never again be so dominant in the electorate. Another, younger hand is tightening its grip on the money hose, and
The millennial generation are now almost all eligible to vote in this country, with more getting access to the electoral roll by the day. And as witnessed at the last election, they’re very keen on it. Those who object to these broad generalisations of millions of people, defining and dividing boomers and millennials need only look at the last election to witness the vast divide that now exists between generations.
Source: Ipsos Mori
Just like all those who’d received a free trial of AOL in the mail, the millennial generation are too big to ignore, and will permanently alter the existing political culture.
This change in the generational guard should not be ignored, as any seeking office will need to appeal to the “Sons of Summer” to get elected. The strategies pursued will vary, though Labour saw considerable success at the last election on a student debt and climate change resolution platform.
As millennials will make up almost a third of the UK electorate by 2020, such policies will likely be peddled by more than just labour when the next election swings around. Though Labour will try to fund its solutions for millennials through taxation and government spending, the Conservatives will likely just go for the government spending. With the Bank of England set to resume rate cuts and quantitative easing with the rest of the central banks, the issue of solvency will be kicked down the road, in fact the fiscal stimulus will effectively be printed by the BoE.
This may not be “conservative” – but nobody – nobody – is gonna get elected on an austerity platform. And with that in mind, it’s hard not to imagine how we don’t end up in a higher inflationary environment…
More to come,
Boaz Shoshan
Editor, Capital & Conflict
Category: Market updates