Arguably, the world’s young population has grown up in a free market world without even knowing the existence of something called ‘restricted economy’
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Violent protests in Ecuador are being reported by news professionals across the world. Across the Atlantic, railway strikes have put Boris Johnson’s United Kingdom in a territory that a generation has largely not been familiar with. In the last two months, some 70 countries reported public protests over inflation, particularly food price rise.
Barring the food riots and the spate of protests in 2011-2012, the current spell of protests is the widest in recent history. There are distinct surge periods in protests in the world.
In 2011-12, protests across the world recorded huge numbers. In 2015-17, there was another surge. Just before the pandemic struck in the beginning of 2020, there were a few reported. The latest surge started in the beginning of 2022 and the fastest to spread, from the United States to Tunisia to Pakistan.
Economic crisis has been the trigger for all these spells of protests.
The striking aspect of these protests is the participation of the youth population. On the face of it, it is logical as nearly two-thirds of the world population is below the age of 40. The world population was never so young.
The current spell of protests is a distinct one as it revolves around high inflation — specifically food price rise. The world is in an unprecedented food crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the extreme weather events bringing down overall crop production.
The central banks of some 30 countries have already increased interest to curb inflation; nearly 50 countries have restricted exports to ensure enough food for local consumption and also to maintain the demand-supply balance. In the UK, the government has in fact warned employers not to increase wages.
This is because it will add to more money circulation thus adding to the inflation. In recent weeks, most of the public utility employees have been protesting demanding a pay rise to fight the price rises. Rivals US and China are in a huddle to work out tariff-control measures to curb inflation.
Food inflation is the highest in four decades for at least 70 countries — both developed and developing — for which regular data is available. So, the majority of the world population are for the first time experiencing such severe food inflation.
Depending on country-specific situations, the young population is also for the first time cutting down food intake or reducing expenditure on food in some ways to fight inflation. Price rise also means demonetisation of income, effectively bringing down real income.
The food price rise pinches as it comes after nearly two decades of cheap food availability. This is credited to the globalisation of the food system. The world became a local bazaar where nobody bothered where the food came from but enjoyed the low price and easy availability. But now the globalised bazaar has collapsed exposing the countries’ fragile food security.
Arguably, the world’s young population has grown up in a free market world without even knowing the existence of something called ‘restricted economy’. So, does the rising young population restlessness in recent years hint at discomfort with the free market? Like a decade ago, the price rise and youth protesting more are being treated as a sign of the deglobalisation process.
Many interpret this as the current generation is not sure whether the future ones will have the same security, which brings in the raging issue of intergenerational equality. Given the long spells of youth unrest, it is definitely not a blip response to a systems failure.
In recent years, trade restrictions to ‘local-interest-first’ policies are increasingly being adopted by countries. Like globalisation decades ago, a new trend of deglobalisation in the form of welfare-driven political discourse is gripping countries.
In the last few months, companies in countries like the US and UK and in Europe are being encouraged and incentivised to take up local production of commodities. This is the first sign of localisation in a globalised world.
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