Greek youth unemployment has just hit 65% (cite). Spanish youth unemployment passed 56% two months ago (cite). Italy and Portugal aren’t that far behind.
Why aren’t we seeing mass riots and civil disorder across Southern Europe? Everything I understand (admittedly not much) about the causes of riots has these countries pegged as being tinderboxes, waiting to explode. Mass youth (and general) unemployment, no prospect of the situation improving, warm weather, plummeting quality of life, right and left wing political agitators (in the case of Greece) at work — yet no massive riots. What gives?
Same reason their economies are tanking … they’re a bunch of lazy oiks who’d rather siesta than riot / put in an honest day’s work.
/s
There have been riots in Greeceand Spainrecently. Not sure if these count as “massive” but it’s certainly bubbling along; in the Greek riots people have died so it’s certainly not pleasant over there.
There have been riots and mass protests, especially in Greece of course but also large demonstrations in Spain, and in Italy they elected a clown to parliament. It just didn’t alter anything, nor could it, so why continue? Many have resigned themselves to emigrating. Many have already done so. There’s also the matter that a lot of those unemployed are working their ass off on the black market. Greek youth unemployment of 65% during the height of the tourist season (which incidentally is setting new records)? I doubt it. And Spain counts young people under education as being unemployed, so the actual number of unemployed is going to be considerable lower. Also not so many youths as all that. All four countries almost stopped having children a number of years ago, so there’s not a youth bulge, and old geezers seldom riot.
Perhaps it’s relevant that the youth in Greece and Spain have grown up in freedom with no oppressive government to hate? (unlike, say, the rioters of the Arab spring)
They are young enough to have no memories of Franco or of the military junta in Greece.
That doesn’t mean they love and respect their governments, of course. Youth sometimes riot in even in the wealthiest and most stable countries (at the G8 conference in Davos, or the Occupy Wall street movement, etc).
To riot, you need a target. It may be your local police, if you feel they pick on you.
It may be the glass windows of the banks and stock brokers, if you feel they’re screwing you.
But in Greece and Spain, I get the feeling that the problem is not that the wealthiest bankers screwed the rest of their countrymen; The problem is that the whole country is sinking together, everybody knows it, and nobody knows what to do about it.
So when the problem has no specific focus, then you have no direct target for your anger, and less reason to riot.
I find it very interesting that someone might be able to win an election there by appealing solely to the unemployed. I wonder how high the percentage of unemployment would have to be for people to see job creation as futile, and actually take an interest in transitioning to some kind of futuristic post-jobs society.
This sad article about a Spanish family’s struggle to stay afloat mentions a bit of black-market work and some small-scale protesting, but nothing big.
The Spanish grey economy is about 20% of GDP, in Italy it’s over 25% (this compares to approx 11% in the UK).
That has huge implications for tax revenues. Much of the anger in Greece in particular is around public sector pensions, but without tax coming in you cannot fund pensions.
The lack of any rational reason for having a specific focus at which to direct one’s anger has throughout history seldom been sufficient to stop people from having a focus for their anger anyway. I doubt this is an explanation.
Ridley,
Are you, in particular, drawing an analogy with race riots in the US in the 60s and early 90s? If so, it seems that the situations have significant differences. Southern European youths have had a bad time over the last few years. US blacks had been treated badly for rather longer and more pervasively than that.
I’m guessing that a lot of southern European youths have family to fall back on to support them. For US blacks, relying on their family who were also black and afflicted by the same circumstances offered less support.
Even though it may seem that there is no hope of the situation improving, that is more hyperbole than analysis. It’s a bad recession, not a situation that’s been going on for decades/generations and looks set to continue for decades/generations.
Maybe they’re smart enough to realise riots aren’t the answer? If you’re unhappy that 60% of young people are unemployed, acting like a complete tool and burning down shops just means you’ll have an 80% unemployment rate at the end of it, putting you one step further away from achieving your goals.
I don’t think it’s always dumb to riot. Scaring the shit out of the Powers That Be is sometimes the only thing that works. OWS might have been more successful if it had functioned more like a lynch mob on Wall Street.