I’m a little disconcerted by the right-wing talk I hear from some young people. Most are for the protection of the environment, of course, but this goes against their political, economic and social ideas, which are tilting a lot to the right.
We hear them say that the rich should not be taxed because they deserve to be rich (when tax evasion causes all countries to lose hundreds of billions in taxes), that private health is much better and that the State must take its hole so as not to harm their freedom. I blame this discourse on the neoliberal propaganda which has dominated since 1980 and which hides the fact that social mobility is less and less present in our societies and that private health care excludes many people who do not have the means to access it (take the example of the United States, supposedly the richest country on the planet, where infant mortality compares with Third World countries).
However, as the late Pierre Bourgault said, young people are not aware that they have benefited from the advantages of a progressive and social-democratic society and that, at 50 or 60, they will be happy to be in a a society that cares for the sick and the poor and is not just dominated by every man for himself like a certain country south of the border.
In addition, these young people forget that the problems that humanity will face in the coming decades will require more cooperation, sharing, intervention by public authorities to meet the challenges of the future and less navel-gazing and individualism. stuffed into their heads since they were little.
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