WORLD NEWS

Britain and elsewhere have long tweaked established social institutions. But their iconoclasm goes further than this. Young Britons are classical liberals: as well as prizing social freedom, they believe in low taxes, limited welfare and personal responsibility. In America they would be called libertarians.
More than two-thirds of people born before 1939 consider the welfare state "one of Britain's proudest achievements". Less than one-third of those born after 1979 say the same. According to the BSA, members of Generation Y are not just half as likely as older people to consider it the state's responsibility to cover the costs of residential care in old age. They are also more likely to take such a hard-hearted view than were members of the famously jaded Generation X (born between 1966 and 1979) at the same stage of life.
"Every successive generation is less collectivist than the last," says Ben Page of Ipsos MORI, a pollster. All age groups are becoming more socially and economically liberal. But the young are ahead of the general trend. They have a more sceptical view of state transfers, even allowing for the general shift in attitudes (see first chart).
Polling by YouGov shows that those aged 18 to 24 are also more likely than older people to consider social problems the responsibility of individuals rather than government. They are deficit hawks (see second chart). They care about the environment, but are also keen on commerce: more supportive of the privatisation of utilities, more likely to reject government attempts to ban branding on cigarette packets and more likely to agree that Tesco, Britain's supermarket giant, "has only become so large by offering customers what they want".
Why the shift? History is one explanation. Today's young people grew up in a period of relatively low unemployment, after the removal of the contributory elements of the welfare system and long after the collectivist afterglow of the second world war had faded.
But their attitudes also reflect the hardships they face today. The economic slowdown and government cuts have hit them harder than most. The coalition has trimmed the support paid to those who stay in school between the ages of 16 and 18, raised university tuition fees and axed a temporary employment scheme for those aged 18 to 24. Although overall joblessness is lower than in most European countries, youth unemployment has increased by half since 2008: an advertisement of eight vacancies at a Nottingham coffee shop recently drew 1,700 applications.
Just as the construction of the post-war welfare state helps to explain the collectivist instincts of the old, today's economic adversity and dwindling welfare payments appear to be forging a generation of dogged individualists. Rosina St James, a 22-year-old student who chairs the British Youth Council, a network of 230 organisations, describes a sense that "you're running against the person next to you". "People in our generation are incredibly competitive with each other," she says.
Young Britons' broad liberalism, their suspicion of state interventions of most varieties, not only contrasts with the views of their elders. It also makes them unusual internationally. Britons between 15 and 35 are more relaxed about the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis than are young people in the EU as a whole. Another Eurobarometer study conducted in 2011 showed that Britons in that age group were more likely to have set up their own business than their counterparts in any other large European country.
In the United States (where, admittedly, the state is smaller) polling in 2012 by the Pew Research Center shows that 59% of Americans aged 18 to 29 thought that "government should do more to solve problems". That was higher than for any other age group. The firm's polls also show that members of the youngest age group, though liberal on gay marriage, are less likely to say that abortion should be legal than any group apart from the over-65s. (Abortion is not always a libertarian cause: Ron Paul, the country's most famous libertarian, is fiercely against it.)
Young Britons' beliefs probably owe much to the country's education system. Britain has high levels of university attendance, a factor that correlates with social liberalism, says James Tilley, an academic specialising in public opinion. It is a materialistic society with a flexible labour market; its citizens chart their lives on social media with more zeal than most-all things that tend to contribute to a competitive, individualist mindset.
As yet, there is little sign any of this is permeating mainstream politics. The two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, broadly adhere to the conventional right-left divide (with economic liberalism on one side and social liberalism on the other). Most young people reject politics altogether: a 2013 study of political engagement by the Hansard Society found that although some two-thirds of adults under 35 declare themselves interested in "current affairs", only one-third confessed an interest in "politics". Research by Ipsos MORI suggests that turnout among young people at the 2010 election was just 44%, far below the national average of 65%.
Ayn't seen nothing yet
But among the politically engaged minority, libertarianism is growing. In April your correspondent squeezed into a fuggy crowd of enthusiasts trading quotes by Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard in a room above a central London pub. Between discourses on the merits of Bitcoin ("a currency without government-perfect!") old-timers marvelled at the surge of interest. Freedom Forum, an annual convention for young libertarians, has tripled in size since its launch in 2011; a similar venture planned for July-a "Freedom Week" of debate and lectures-has ten applicants for every place.
Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think-tank, declares himself "gobsmacked" at the new popularity of anti-statist ideas and confidently predicts the emergence of a mass libertarian movement.