The capitalist crisis is hitting the working class hard as living conditions worsen every month. The situation is particularly bad for youth. Indeed, we are the first generation to be worse off than our parents. It sucks to be young under capitalism!
When the economy took a nose dive in 2020 triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, youth in retail and the service sector were some of the first to lose their jobs and incomes. The Canadian youth unemployment rate ballooned to 27.4 per cent in the early months of the pandemic, the highest among OECD countries. Two years later and youth unemployment still remains high; in fact, it is double the overall national average.
During the pandemic, thousands of young people applied to the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) but it was hardly enough to survive. CESB offered a meager $1,250 per month, if you were eligible. This barely covered rent in the major cities, let alone food and other necessities. Many were forced to live off credit cards and loans to simply make ends meet. Youth in Canada run an average deficit of $750 per month. This debt load has been further expanded by the rising cost of education.
Burden of debt
The pandemic forced the closure of post-secondary education institutions and reduced the services students could access. Scandalously, universities administrations not only continued to collect exorbitant tuition, they increased fees! To name just a few, Dalhousie University and the University of Manitoba raised average tuition in 2020 by upwards of three per cent. The University of Calgary raised tuition the same year by five per cent for returning domestic students and seven per cent for new students.
The reduced cost of services and higher tuition gave universities record-high profits. Canadian universities reported a net revenue surplus of $7.3 billion, where the majority came from tuition hikes. For instance, the University of Toronto saw its revenue increase by 10 per cent in 2021 to $4 billion, a rise from $3.6 billion in 2020. These tuition hikes forced young people to take on more loan debt to afford schooling or to afford basic necessities. In Canada, the average student loan debt is now $28,000 for a bachelor’s degree and $15,300 for college grads.
The rising cost of living combined with precarious low wage work is making it extremely unlikely for young people to ever alleviate themselves of debt. As one former student put it: “I am still living essentially paycheque to paycheque because I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to save up.”
It is predicted that it will take a decade before young people truly recover from the impact of the pandemic. But even this prediction is highly unlikely given the crushing weight of inflation.
Crushing weight of inflation
The latest Statistics Canada data reports official inflation to be at 7.6 per cent; however, the skyrocketing costs of basic goods far exceeds this average. Gas prices have risen 35.6 per cent compared to last year. Food is up by 10 per cent, the fastest increase since 1981. The National Bank of Canada recently released a report titled: “Housing Affordability: The worst deterioration in 41 years in Q2 2022”. The average home in Toronto now sells for $1.4 million, with mortgages sucking up 64 per cent of household income. To afford a home, young people will need a minimal annual income of $265,664. Not only is home ownership out of reach for most young people, renting is also becoming increasingly unsustainable. Average rent across Canada hit $1,934 in July. In Toronto, average rent has increased almost 22 per cent to $2,257 for a one-bedroom apartment.
The cost of living crisis is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. In fact, there are warnings of an impending recession that would further aggravate the existing problems facing young people. A recent Canada Newswire report concluded that “young people in Canada 15 to 29 years of age can no longer afford any of the cities they live in – big or small”. This is the grim reality and portends an even grimmer future awaiting the youth.
Don’t let capitalism crush you—organize to crush capitalism!
Faced with this situation many young people are miserable. This is understandable, of course, as misery is all that capitalism has to offer. But by giving into this mood, we are giving the capitalists what they want. By remaining isolated and hopeless, this guarantees our collective misery and this is exactly what the capitalists want. Being a “doomer” only serves to maintain the status quo. However, the misery of the current situation is only one side of the coin. On the other side is optimism and confidence in the future.
Opposition to capitalism is highest among youth—49 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men aged 18-34. Young people are looking for fundamental, revolutionary change. But on their own, young people are essentially powerless against the system. This youthful revolutionary energy must therefore be combined with the power of the working class.
The development of capitalism has created a powerful, global working class which collectively produces all the wealth in society. Marx explained that it is their role in the productive process as social labour which forces workers to organize collectively as a class against the bosses. This is what Marx and Engels meant when they wrote in The Communist Manifesto, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers.” The working class has never been larger and under the hammer blows of the capitalist crisis is beginning to awaken and fight back, as Marx predicted.
Alongside the crisis of capitalism, we have seen revolutionary struggles erupt all around the world. There was the inspiring Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 that spread to every corner of the globe. Youth were at the very forefront of the struggle, showing tremendous bravery, facing the brutality of the capitalist state. Most recently, workers and youth flooded the capital of Sri Lanka in a revolutionary struggle against deteriorating living conditions.
These movements highlight the power of the working class and their collective strength in challenging capitalism. Yet these movements and many others have ultimately ended in defeat. Why? Malcom X put it well when he said, “We’re not outnumbered, we’re out organized”.
This is why we need to build the revolutionary party—to effectively combine the tremendous potential of the working class with the energy of the revolutionary youth and the ideas that can help us win. The revolutionary party is the missing link in all the struggles we have witnessed.
Join us and help us build the forces of Marxism to lead the way to a socialist future!
