politics

The only way you can really define generation is by way of political economy though.

Boomers grew up during the post war era when the social services created by the post depression era were being leveraged to build up white wealth after the war.

Gen X grew up during Nixon and Reagan, experienced stagflation and the massive austerity imposed by the new neoliberal ideology. The wealthy ones got wealthier and the poor ones got poorer.

Millennials were in that post neoliberal haze of the 90s where American empire seemed to have come into it's power. It has subjugated all developing markets in Asia and Europe and cemented itself as the sole superpower after killing the USSR.

Gen Z and the younger millennials grew up with 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the 2008 housing crisis, and COVID recession, something that caused complete and total disenchantment of America.

It can feel like it's hard to discuss things between these generations, because any one of them trying to find common ground with younger people only has their own experience in the economic climate of their time. Boomers just say "get a job" because for the white ones it really was just that easy. They don't grasp the idea of economic stagnation as something that happens when you're young and that it causes you to enter a state of perpetual poverty that benefits their pension funds.