The Pinch
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Illuminating... Chock-a-block with fascinating facts, insights and theories. Willetts remains one of the few politicians who understands that Britain's social and economic history sets it apart from most other societies and that a form of individualistic capitalism predated the industrial revolution by many centuries. We have always been a nation of cash, contracts, commerce and nuclear families. This makes his book well worth reading... his primary thesis - that baby-boomers are dumping too many of their problems on the young - is spot on. --Allister Heath, Spectator Business
One of the most thoughtful and provocative books to emerge from a politician's processor in the past 20 years... Willetts writes with lucidity, elegance and wit. He has read extraordinarily widely... Any future government is going to be wrestling for some time with the after-effects of the great pinch he describes.
--Howard Davies, Times Higher Education Supplement
`The Pinch is a powerful personal credo, a mine of information, and a solid and remorseless argument. It is the sort of work that gives intellectual spine to a whole career. It assembles facts, it makes brave judgements, and it offers a conclusion that has large, obvious and quite immediate consequences... The author's logic is always careful, his terms defined, his evidence set out and his tangent from the central argument clear... He offers an engaging, sometimes startling tour d'horizon of research and thinking in socio-political theory since David Hume and Adam Smith... His exposition of theories of human altruism is beautifully clear... This book's argument stands comparison with the speeches and treatises of Sir Keith Joseph.' --Spectator
'Though David Willetts is a member of the Tory Shadow-Cabinet, his book takes the voter right above and beyond party politics, suggesting that the big underlying issue facing all major parties at the election - and the one which will face any incoming government - is to what extent we can or should push the costs of maintaining our own lifestyle onto the next generation. It's an intelligently but simply argued case, packed with surprising information. What politics really should be about.' -- Matthew Parris, selecting The Pinch as his 'One book to get to grips with the 2010 General Election' in The Times
One of the most thoughtful and provocative books to emerge from a politician's processor in the past 20 years... Willetts writes with lucidity, elegance and wit. He has read extraordinarily widely... Any future government is going to be wrestling for some time with the after-effects of the great pinch he describes.
--Howard Davies, Times Higher Education Supplement
`The Pinch is a powerful personal credo, a mine of information, and a solid and remorseless argument. It is the sort of work that gives intellectual spine to a whole career. It assembles facts, it makes brave judgements, and it offers a conclusion that has large, obvious and quite immediate consequences... The author's logic is always careful, his terms defined, his evidence set out and his tangent from the central argument clear... He offers an engaging, sometimes startling tour d'horizon of research and thinking in socio-political theory since David Hume and Adam Smith... His exposition of theories of human altruism is beautifully clear... This book's argument stands comparison with the speeches and treatises of Sir Keith Joseph.' --Spectator
'Though David Willetts is a member of the Tory Shadow-Cabinet, his book takes the voter right above and beyond party politics, suggesting that the big underlying issue facing all major parties at the election - and the one which will face any incoming government - is to what extent we can or should push the costs of maintaining our own lifestyle onto the next generation. It's an intelligently but simply argued case, packed with surprising information. What politics really should be about.' -- Matthew Parris, selecting The Pinch as his 'One book to get to grips with the 2010 General Election' in The Times
Product Description
This provocative and thought-provoking book argues that the baby boomer generation have thrived at the expense of their children. The baby boom of 1945-65 produced the biggest, richest generation that Britain has ever known. Today, at the peak of their power and wealth, baby boomers now run our country; by virtue of their sheer demographic power, they have fashioned the world around them in a way that meets all of their housing, healthcare and financial needs. In this original and provocative book, David Willetts shows how the baby boomer generation has attained this position at the expense of their children. Social, cultural and economic provision has been made for the reigning section of society, whilst the needs of the next generation have taken a back seat. Willetts argues that if our political, economic and cultural leaders do not begin to discharge their obligations to the future, the young people of today will be taxed more, work longer hours for less money, have lower social mobility and live in a degraded environment in order to pay for their parents' quality of life. Baby boomers, worried about the kind of world they are passing on to their children, are beginning to take note. However, whilst the imbalance in the quality of life between the generations is becoming more obvious, what is less certain is whether the older generation will be willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a more equal distribution. "The Pinch" is a landmark account of intergenerational relations in Britain. It is essential reading for parents and policymakers alike.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brave and well thought-through,
By
This review is from: The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future - And How They Can Give it Back (Hardcover)
How lucky my generation has been. Never called up to fight a major war. A student-loan-free education. An indomitable feeling that we can do anything. A generation approaching oldie-ship that will look different, act atypically and feel unconventionally about ourselves. No lawn bowls for us, or fawn windcheaters, or sensible shoes (unless we choose to wear them with a sense of post-modern irony, of course...). Heli-skiing at 73 - why not?In a characteristically scholarly but lucidly readable fashion, Willetts provides a sociological, economic and demographic grand tour of a generation that has amassed great wealth and power and, he postulates, pulled up the drawbridge behind it. Reading it as a BB evokes pride and guilt in equal measures, but Willetts, a baby-boomer himself, stresses that this is not a book attacking his generation, but merely asking it to use its power wisely and fairly. As a financial planner I deal with many made-it-big-time baby boomers, but watch with dread the younger cohorts sleepwalking into great poverty in old age. Many start life in debt; often have a misplaced obsession with property (Willetts cites research that suggests our decisions about what to invest in are shaped for several decades by the types of assets that were booming in our youth), and even their bosses, whose own pension planning might have been derailed by reductions in tax-relief for the better-off, may no longer feel quite so inclined to encourage their younger staff to save prudently for their later years. I related strongly to Willetts' idea of baby boomers who were allowed to be 'free-range children', and that the social contract between parents and children is less trusting these days, for reasons I still don't fully comprehend, even as a father. Many children of that generation, this reviewer included, spent their days playing freely in the fields/bomb sites/streets - sans mobile phone or GPS kiddie-tracker or bicycle helmet - turning up muddy, grazed, but happy, for afternoon tea. We took risks, made mistakes and got messy, but, equally, so did our parents in allowing us the freedom of spirit that now seems to be emblematic of the generation. So read this book - if you're not a BB, try to understand that although we're not an evil generation, we certainly got lucky, without necessarily realising it. If you are a BB, heed Willetts' words - that your children are the ones who might eventually choose your care home...
34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a good read on how parents are stealing their children's future,
By
This review is from: The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future - And How They Can Give it Back (Hardcover)
David Willetts has been talking about the generation war for a while, and now has put down his thoughts in this highly engaging book. He might be a politician, but his book is both well written and very non-party political. It is full of enticing, and illuminating insights - for example, that Britain has had small nuclear families rather than large extended ones for the past millennium; that sex was discovered before the 1963 and the pill - but as a result an astonishingly high proportion (one quarter from memory) of young brides were pregnant. The central thesis - that the whole economic and social system is geared to the interests of baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965, and those who come afterwards are disadvantaged as a result - is not just convincing, but politically salient. The baby boomers have won the tug of war with their children, with the result that they had free university education, while their children didn't; lower taxes; lower government debt; lower house prices. The post-baby boomers will struggle as they pay off the debts of their parents living beyond their means as though there would be no tomorrow (at least for them). The problem is the solution - although the grey generation need to pay their way more to lessen the burdens on the young, which government is going to risk the wrath of precisely the generation which is the most diligent about going to the polling booths? I think the generations may be warring for some time to come.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wide-ranging review of the likely impact of the 1950/60s baby boom on 21st century Britain,
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This review is from: The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future - And How They Can Give it Back (Hardcover)
An excellent read for anyone interested in getting behind shallow press coverage and political rhetoric on social issues, and into the detail of how best to run the country in the interests of all its inhabitants.David Willetts has a reputation as a thinker, as well as a politician. The book looks at the impact of the baby boom on modern Britain, and the challenges we face as this group move into retirement. The book is heavy on analysis and light on conclusions, and is all the better for that. He resists anecdotes and popular myths, and concentrates on the numbers. For example he stresses that in Britain property tends to be bought and sold as needed, and not passed down through the generations. Importantly this is not a new trend - 87% of land transactions were between unrelated people back in 1400, and this is very different from other countries and cultures. He highlights that what will stop a habitual 20 year old criminal is not prison, but for him to get a job and a steady girlfriend. And what do Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Congo and Somalia have in common? All these global trouble-spots have a median age under 20, compared to the world median of 29 and UK one of 39. What has this got to do with the baby boom? You need to read the book to find out, but what he sets out to demonstrate is that a country's cultural traditions and population profile have a huge effect on the wellbeing of its citizens. The political solutions to Britain's problems over the next few decades will need to take both into account if they are going to succeed. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in politics, and in particular social policy, but also a fascinating book for the general reader.
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