A burden on future generations? How we learned to hate deficits and blame the baby boomers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3138416 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melinda Cooper (0000-0002-1798-4320, Australian National University) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 743-758 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0038026121999211 |
| OpenAlex | W3134504245 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 18 |
The idea that public borrowing places an intolerable burden on posterity is as old as the institution of public debt itself. But the debate over deficit-spending assumed an entirely new scope and import with the rise of the fiscal state in the early twentieth century, as governments assumed greater responsibilities with regard to public welfare and found themselves subject to a new kind of conflict concerning the uses and distribution of public income. In this context, the intergenerational argument against social welfare spending became an important tool in the fight against class redistribution. With a focus on American debates, this article provides a historical sociology of the idea that deficits constitute a burden on future generations, identifying the key historical turning points when this idea acquired new political resonance. In particular, the article investigates how we learned to blame baby boomers for the alleged ills of government deficit-spending and how this now ubiquitous motif of public discourse was reintroduced by the Virginia school public choice theorist James M. Buchanan and later refined by the chief proponent of generational accounting, Laurence Kotlikoff
Baby boomers · Blame · Context (archaeology) · Debt · Demographic economics · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Welfare state · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · History · Law · Social Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |