The ruling class searches for an alibi
Across Europe, young people and workers are entering open
political struggle. In France, high school students have blockaded hundreds of
schools over crumbling infrastructure. In Belgium, students have joined workers
on strike against austerity. In Madrid, tens of thousands have marched against
a housing crisis that has become a social catastrophe. These movements terrify
the ruling class because they expose the bankruptcy of European capitalism and
risk uniting workers across generations in a common fight against austerity,
war, and social decay.
Into this crisis steps Sir Niall Ferguson, a Hoover
Institution fellow, Harvard-affiliated historian, and managing director of New
York advisory firm Greenmantle. Ferguson is no neutral observer: he is a paid
strategist for the investors whose interests he defends. His essay, Why Europe
Is Burning, is an ideological intervention designed to disarm the emerging
movement. Its message to young people is simple: don’t blame capitalism; blame
your grandparents. This is not analysis but class propaganda.
Ferguson opens with contempt. He mocks French lycée students
demanding investment in education for “filling the streets with burning
garbage” and “waving Palestinian flags.” He sneers that their first
demonstration resembles a Catholic child’s first Communion, a ritual, not a
political act. Madrid’s youth are “incensed (they claim)” about housing. This
sneering tone is designed to delegitimise young people’s grievances by
portraying them as irrational or unserious. Ferguson omits the documented
reality: schools plagued by water leaks, rat infestations and collapsing
ceilings; more than half of France’s high schools blockaded or closed; mass
repression, including hundreds of arrests in a single day; and a student in
Lens who lost his hand to police weaponry. Ferguson omits these facts because
they point directly to the capitalist state's responsibility.
Ferguson’s central argument is that Europe’s fiscal crisis
stems from a “war of the generations.” He claims politicians have been
“bribing” pensioners, who are numerous and vote, and insists that the young are
paying for the old. Yet Ferguson’s own figures undermine his case. He
acknowledges that ageing accounts for only two-fifths of the increase in public
debt since 2000. The other three-fifths stem from bank bailouts after the 2008
crash, trillions poured into financial markets during the pandemic, tax cuts
for the wealthy, discretionary spending, and rising interest costs. He also
concedes that pension spending is not exploding: OECD projections show it
rising modestly, from 8.8 to 10 per cent of GDP by 2050, because governments
have already cut benefits and raised retirement ages.
In other words, the debt explosion is overwhelmingly the
result of state transfers to capital, not payments to retirees. Ferguson’s
generational framing is therefore not analysis but ideology. It replaces class
with age, obscuring the role of the banks, landlords, and investors who pay
him.
Reality exposes the fraud. In Madrid, the movement began
with the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal; her death then brought
20,000 people into the streets. Young protesters saw her not as a privileged
pensioner, but as a victim of the same property speculators who prey on them.
In Brussels, young and old marched side by side against austerity. Ferguson’s
generational war falls apart on contact with real struggle. His solution is a
European Javier Milei: mass layoffs, pension cuts, gutted universities, and the
destruction of public services. The investor class demands that workers and
young people pay for the crisis, and pay even more.
The protests in Paris, Brussels, and Madrid are early signs
of a wider working-class movement against austerity, war, and inequality.
Ferguson’s essay is a response from the financial aristocracy to this
resistance. Young people seeking a way forward will not find one in
generational blame or nationalist demagogy. The answer lies in uniting workers
and young people across generations and borders against the system that
produces war, debt, and decay, and in expropriating the oligarchy's fortunes.
Contempt for the youth: the opening move of reaction
Ferguson is not interested in the reality documented for
Europe’s youth. In France, the movement began not in elite lycées but in
Paris’s deprived suburbs. On the movement’s largest day, more than half of all
high schools were blockaded or closed. This was no symbolic gesture; it was a
mass refusal to accept conditions considered intolerable in any wealthy
society. The state responded with repression, not repairs or investment. More
than 600 people were arrested in a single day, and a student in Lens lost his
hand to police weaponry. Ferguson’s narrative omits these facts because they
point directly to the capitalist state's responsibility. Acknowledging them would
mean confronting the social devastation wrought by decades of austerity.
The same pattern is evident across Europe. In Madrid, the
housing crisis has become catastrophic. Rents have climbed nearly 70 per cent
in the past decade, driven by speculation, touristification, and investment
funds taking over entire neighbourhoods. Tens of thousands marched following
the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, whose death the next day came
to symbolise the brutality of Spain’s housing regime. Young people did not view
her as a privileged pensioner living at their expense. They saw her as another
victim of the same property speculators who prey on them. Ferguson’s
generational narrative collapses when confronted with these realities: the
conflict is not between young and old, but between the working class and the
financial oligarchy.
In Belgium, students joined striking workers in opposing
austerity measures that would make workers, pensioners, and low-income
households shoulder the burden of deficit reduction. Unions called for higher
taxes on top earners instead of cuts to health care and a VAT hike. Young and
old marched together, recognising that the crisis is not generational but
class-based. This unity is precisely what Ferguson fears. His essay seeks to
break it by replacing class with age and turning anger away from the banks, landlords,
and investors- the very forces he advises through his firm, Greenmantle.
Ferguson’s contempt for youth is therefore not merely
personal disdain; it is ideological. By depicting young people as naïve,
emotional, or indoctrinated, he seeks to discredit their demands and obscure
the structural causes of their suffering. His sneering tone mirrors the
austerity he advocates. If youth are irrational, people can dismiss their calls
for investment in schools, housing, and public services. If their protests are
mere rituals, state repression can be justified. And if their anger is misdirected,
the real culprits the banks bailed out in 2008, the investors enriched during
the pandemic, the landlords driving up rents, and the governments slashing
social spending can escape scrutiny.
The facts Ferguson leaves out are not incidental; they are
essential. They reveal a Europe where public infrastructure is collapsing,
social inequality is widening, and the basic conditions of life are worsening
for millions. They show a ruling class that responds to every crisis-
financial, social, or geopolitical- by demanding sacrifices from workers and
young people while protecting elite wealth. They also show a generation
entering political struggle not because of “indoctrination,” but because the system
offers them no future.
Ferguson’s contempt reflects the ruling class’s contempt for
those it has impoverished. His omissions reflect an apologist for capital. His
narrative serves as an ideological weapon to divide the working class and
disarm its emerging movement. He suppresses a reality we must confront: Europe
is burning because capitalism is rotting.
The “war of the generations”: a statistical fraud
Ferguson’s central argument is that Europe’s fiscal crisis
is caused by a “war of the generations.” Politicians, he claims, have been
“bribing” pensioners, who are numerous and vote. The young, he insists, are
paying for the old. This framing is not merely superficial; it is a deliberate
ideological construction. It turns a crisis rooted in capitalism's
contradictions into a moral fable about selfish grandparents and naïve youth.
It is designed to pit workers against one another rather than against the
ruling class that has engineered the crisis.
But Ferguson’s own figures contradict him. He acknowledges
that ageing accounts for only two-fifths of the rise in public debt since 2000.
The other three-fifths stem from forces unrelated to pensioners and closely
tied to the financial aristocracy: bank bailouts after the 2008 crash, when
governments transferred trillions to rescue the very institutions whose
speculation triggered the crisis; trillions poured into financial markets
during the pandemic, not to protect public health or workers’ incomes, but to
stabilise asset prices and guarantee investor profits; tax cuts for the
wealthy, which have depleted public revenues while enriching society’s top
layers; discretionary spending, including corporate subsidies and military
outlays; and rising interest costs, driven by central bank policies and
bond-market demands.
These admissions undermine Ferguson’s thesis. If ageing
accounts for only a minority of the rise in debt, then state transfers to
capital account for the majority. The surge in public debt does not result from
pensioners voting themselves largesse. Rather, it stems from governments
socialising bank losses, inflating financial markets, and cutting taxes for the
rich. Pensioners are not beneficiaries of this process; they are among its
victims. Ferguson further concedes that pensions are not exploding.
OECD projections show
public pension spending rising modestly, from 8.8 per cent to 10 per cent of
GDP by 2050. This is not a crisis but a controlled increase following decades
of cuts, higher retirement ages, and restricted coverage. In many countries,
pensioners have already seen their real incomes fall. Portraying them as a
privileged caste draining public finances is a grotesque distortion.
In other words, the debt explosion stems overwhelmingly from
state transfers to capital, not payments to retirees. Ferguson’s generational
framing is therefore ideology, not analysis. It replaces class with age and
obscures the role of the banks, landlords, and investors- the very people who
pay him. This substitution serves a clear political purpose: if the crisis is
generational, the solution is to make the old pay more, cut their pensions
further, and intensify competition between generations. If it is class-based,
the solution is to confront the financial oligarchy, expropriate its wealth,
and redirect resources to social needs. Ferguson’s argument is designed to
prevent the second conclusion and promote the first.
Ferguson’s generational narrative is an ideological weapon
designed to divide workers and young people just as they are beginning to
unite. It defends the financial aristocracy under the guise of concern for the
young. The reality he suppresses is clear: Europe’s fiscal crisis stems from
capitalism’s decay, not pensioners’ selfishness. The wealth needed to fund
schools, housing, and pensions lies in the oligarchy's fortunes, which Ferguson
serves.
War and markets: the real trigger of Europe’s crisis
Ferguson acknowledges that the immediate shock came from the
US–Israeli war against Iran, which began at the end of February. More than
seven months later, the war continues to destabilise global energy markets and
raise borrowing costs. This admission fatally undermines his argument. If
Europe’s fiscal crisis was triggered by an imperialist war waged by Washington
and its allies, then recasting it as a generational conflict is exposed as a
political diversion. The crisis does not result from pensioners voting for
their own benefit; it stems from militarism, financial speculation, and the
subordination of every aspect of social life to the interests of the capitalist
class.
Ferguson notes that French 10-year yields rose from 3.22 per
cent to 4.87 per cent, while public debt reached 119 per cent of GDP. These
figures do not reflect demographic change; they directly result from war and
the financial markets’ response. When energy prices spike, shipping routes are
disrupted, and geopolitical instability spreads across the Middle East, bond
markets demand higher returns. Governments then pass these costs on to workers
through austerity. This is the mechanism of modern imperialism: war drives up
the cost of capital, and capital demands that society pay the bill.
Ferguson’s solution makes the old pay too much, which widens
the attack on the working class. It is not a critique of austerity but an
extension of it. He accepts the premise that workers and youth must bear the
burden of rising debt, and merely insists that pensioners should be included in
the sacrifice. This is not opposition to austerity; it is austerity
intensified. It is the financial aristocracy demanding that every section of
the working class, from students to retirees, be made to pay for a crisis they
did not create.
The war against Iran is not an aberration. It is part of a
broader imperialist offensive driven by the crisis of world capitalism. Facing
economic decline and geopolitical challenges, the United States has
increasingly turned to militarism to maintain its global dominance. Europe,
tied to Washington through NATO and dependent on global energy markets, is
dragged into these conflicts. The result is soaring military budgets, rising
borrowing costs, and deepening social cuts. Ferguson’s generational narrative
conceals this reality. By focusing on pensioners, he obscures the role of the
banks, the bond markets, and the military‑industrial complex.
The rise in French borrowing costs is not natural. Financial
markets punish governments for geopolitical instability created by the very
imperialist policies Ferguson supports. Public debt reaching 119 per cent of
GDP does not result from retirees receiving modest pensions. It results from
trillions transferred to banks during crises, trillions more pumped into
financial markets during the pandemic, and the enormous costs of war.
Ferguson’s argument is therefore not simply false; it is a conscious inversion
of reality. He blames the victims of austerity for the consequences of the
policies he advocates.
The purpose of this inversion is clear. If the crisis is
caused by war and financial speculation, then the solution is to oppose war and
expropriate the financial oligarchy. If pensioners cause the crisis, then the
solution is to cut pensions and raise retirement ages. Ferguson’s narrative
exists to prevent the first conclusion and promote the second. It is an
ideological weapon aimed at dividing the working class and redirecting anger
away from the ruling class.
The reality he suppresses is that Europe’s fiscal crisis is
inseparable from imperialist war. The working class is being told to pay for
the bombs dropped on Iran, for the weapons sent to Israel, and for the rising
interest demanded by the markets. Ferguson’s proposal to make the old pay too
is not a critique of this system but a demand to sacrifice its victims further.
The answer lies not in generational blame but in a unified struggle of workers
and youth against war, austerity, and the capitalist system that produces them.
Generation as a substitute for class
Ferguson’s ideological sleight of hand replaces class with
age. His prize statistic, taken from the Wall Street Journal, shows wealth
rising for Americans over 75 and falling for those under 35. But median wealth
by age tells you nothing about who owns the wealth. It is a statistical trick
that dissolves class relations into demographic categories. It lumps together
the retired factory worker in Lille and the billionaire shareholder in Neuilly and
calls them both “seniors.” The purpose is obvious. By collapsing class into
age, Ferguson erases the capitalist class. His clients the investors, fund
managers, and financial institutions he advises through Greenmantle disappear
into the statistical fog. The billionaire and the pensioner become
indistinguishable, and the real structure of wealth ownership is concealed.
This is not an innocent mistake. It is a deliberate
ideological manoeuvre. If wealth is described only in terms of age, then the
young can be encouraged to resent the old rather than the capitalist class. In
Ferguson's narrative, the retired worker living on a modest pension becomes
part of a privileged cohort hoarding resources at the expense of youth.
Meanwhile, the real beneficiaries of the past four decades- the banks bailed
out in 2008, the corporations enriched during the pandemic, the landlords
driving up rents, and the investors profiting from austerity- remain invisible.
The Madrid movement makes Ferguson’s argument collapse
instantly. If the old were the privileged class, why would the eviction of an
elderly woman spark mass outrage among the young? Why would her death become a
symbol of the brutality of the housing crisis? The answer is simple: because
the conflict is not generational. It is class‑based. Young and old alike are
victims of the same capitalist forces landlords, banks, and investment funds
that Ferguson represents.
The same dynamic was visible in Brussels. There, young
people joined striking workers and pensioners in mass demonstrations against
austerity measures that would hit every section of the working class. The
unions demanded higher taxes on the highest earners rather than cuts to health
care and a VAT hike. Young and old marched together, united by the recognition
that the crisis is not caused by pensioners receiving modest benefits but by
the capitalist class demanding ever greater sacrifices from society.
Ferguson’s generational war collapses at the first contact
with actual struggle. It is an ideological construction designed to divide the
working class just as it begins to unite. By portraying pensioners as a
privileged caste, Ferguson seeks to redirect youth anger away from the banks,
landlords, and investors the real architects of Europe’s crisis and toward
their own grandparents. It is a classic strategy of reaction: turn the
oppressed against one another so they don't recognise their common enemy. The
reality he suppresses is clear. Europe’s crisis is not generational. It is the
product of capitalism’s decay, imperialist war, and the domination of society
by a financial oligarchy. Young people searching for a way forward will not
find it in Ferguson’s statistical distortions. They will find it in workers'
unity across generations and borders against the system that exploits them all.
Equating socialism with fascism: the oldest trick in the
book
Ferguson claims the left offers socialism and the right
offers “national socialism,” and that both converge on industrial policy,
public ownership, rent controls, and “blaming Israel.” This is not an
analytical argument but a century‑old reactionary trope: the deliberate
conflation of socialism with fascism to delegitimise any anti‑capitalist
politics. It is the same device used by Cold War ideologues, by Thatcherite
polemicists, and by every defender of the capitalist order who needs to portray
socialism as inherently authoritarian. By equating socialism with “national
socialism,” Ferguson erases the fundamental distinction between a movement
rooted in the international unity of the working class and a movement rooted in
chauvinism, racism, and the defence of private property. The purpose is to
smear the left, sanitise the right, and present capitalism as the only
legitimate political horizon.
This rhetorical manoeuvre also serves another function: it
obscures the fact that the far right in Europe is not an external threat
encroaching on the political mainstream but a product of the mainstream itself.
The same governments that slash social spending, militarise borders, and
scapegoat migrants cultivate the conditions in which fascist forces grow. The
same media outlets that denounce “extremism” amplify anti‑immigrant narratives.
The same political establishment that claims to defend democracy adopts the
policies of the far right. Ferguson’s argument conceals this reality by
pretending that socialism and fascism are mirror images, equally dangerous,
equally irrational, equally detached from the “sensible centre” he inhabits.
He then predicts that youth may turn to burning asylum‑seekers’
hotels and synagogues as if this were meteorological inevitability rather than
the product of the very anti‑immigrant hysteria he amplifies. He writes as
though racist violence simply descends from the sky, as though young people
spontaneously become fascists without any influence from the media, the state,
or the political establishment. In reality, such violence is the direct outcome
of policies and narratives promoted by figures like Ferguson: the demonisation
of migrants, the portrayal of refugees as a burden, the insistence that social
decay is caused by outsiders rather than by capitalism.
Ferguson’s warning is therefore deeply cynical. He
scapegoats migrants while warning that others might do the same. He fuels the
fire and then pretends to fear the flames. His prediction of youth burning
synagogues is not a neutral forecast but a political provocation, designed to
smear the emerging youth movement by associating it with fascist violence. It
is an attempt to delegitimise mass protests by suggesting they could slide into
pogroms. This suggestion has no basis in reality but serves the ideological
needs of the ruling class.
The truth is that Europe’s youth are not turning to fascism.
They are turning to collective struggle against austerity, war, and social
inequality. They are marching alongside pensioners, migrant workers, and the
unemployed. They are demanding investment in schools, housing, and public
services. Ferguson’s attempt to portray them as potential fascists is a
reactionary fantasy aimed at discrediting their movement and protecting the
capitalist system that has produced the crisis.
His argument is not a warning but a threat: if youth do not
accept austerity, they will be blamed for extremism. The real danger comes not
from the youth but from the ruling class that is stoking nationalism,
militarism, and xenophobia to defend its wealth.
What is really burning
The protests in Paris, Brussels, and Madrid are early signs
of a broader working‑class movement against austerity, war, and inequality.
They express a social reality no European government can stabilise: the
capitalist system cannot meet even society's most basic needs. Governments are
collapsing because no faction of the ruling class can impose the cuts markets
demand without provoking mass resistance. Every attempt to shift the burden
onto workers, youth, pensioners, or migrants encounters immediate opposition.
The political order is cracking under the pressure of its own contradictions.
Ferguson’s essay responds to the investor class's resistance.
It seeks not to understand the crisis but to contain it. His generational
narrative divides workers by age, turns youth against pensioners, and obscures
the role of banks, landlords, and financial institutions that have enriched
themselves through decades of speculation, privatisation, and war. His
scapegoating of migrants serves the same purpose: to redirect anger away from
capital and toward the most vulnerable sections of society. It is an
ideological shield for the ruling class at a moment when its legitimacy is openly
challenged.
Young people searching for a way forward will not find it in
Ferguson’s generational blame or in the nationalist programs of Le Pen and her
equivalents. These forces offer only deeper austerity, intensified repression,
and the poisonous politics of division. The real alternative lies in uniting
workers and youth across generations and borders in a conscious struggle
against the capitalist system that produces war, debt, and decay.
Resources for decent schools, affordable housing, and secure
pensions are abundant. They are concentrated in the fortunes of the financial
oligarchy Ferguson serves. The task is not to redistribute poverty among
generations but to reclaim wealth stolen from society and use it to meet human
needs.
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