Catch the millennials before it’s too late

Young people have lost faith in the free-market system. Matthew Lynn suggests four things businesses can do to win back their trust.

A huge hike in corporation tax. Limits on executive pay. A sweeping programme of nationalisation. Big increases in public spending. It is hard to think of anything about Corbynomics that business in this country is going to like but, right now, it looks increasingly like that is what they are going to get. The Conservative party is descending into chaos and Jeremy Corbyn has seen a surge in popularity. The combination may well be enough to bring the most far-left Labour government since 1945 to power.

If that happens, it will largely be on the back of a huge rise in support for Labour among the 20-somethings who are angry with a system that doesn't seem to be working for them. They appear to be losing faith in a free-market economy in such a dramatic way that they may vote in big enough numbers for a radical change. If business doesn't want to see a hard-left government, it needs to start figuring out how to make a liberal, free-market system work better for the young. The government and business leaders should be working out ways to change the minds of young people, and giving them more of a stake in the system. But how? Here are four good places they could start.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.