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How Inflation Fuels Class Warfare Between Young and Old — and Why the State Wants It That Way

EDITOR'S NOTES

This article might be one of the most important pieces you’ll read this year. If you want to understand why the American economy feels rigged, why younger generations can’t build wealth, and why political conflict keeps escalating, you need to read this—twice. We’re going to break down the key arguments from Joshua Mawhorter’s powerful essay on government-manufactured class conflict, published via Mises Wire. In this explainer, I’ll walk you through the root causes of intergenerational tension, the financial sleight-of-hand that makes housing unaffordable, and how inflation weaponizes time itself. We’ll also expose the state’s role in turning citizens against each other—and how you can break free from the cycle.

Eric Blair Dec 16, 25

The False Promise of Democracy: Loot Before You’re Looted

At the core of Mawhorter’s argument is a devastating truth: once the state becomes the primary means of wealth redistribution, peaceful cooperation gives way to zero-sum conflict. The free market rewards productivity and service. The state, by contrast, rewards political power and the ability to extract wealth from others.

In democracies, this manifests as a vicious scramble: get your hands on the lever of government before someone else uses it against you. This logic doesn’t create prosperity—it breeds resentment, parasitism, and decay.

And worst of all? The political elite—the “state caste”—not only profits from this chaos but depends on it to retain power.

Real Class Conflict: Net Tax-Payers vs. Net Tax-Consumers

Forget the Marxist fantasy of workers vs. capitalists. That’s a distraction. The real line of economic conflict is between net tax-payers (those who produce more than they consume in state services) and net tax-consumers (those who receive more than they pay).

This isn’t just about income brackets. It’s about the long-term structure of dependency:

Most young people are net tax-payers.
Most elderly Americans—through Social Security, Medicare, and pensions—are net tax-consumers.
And at the top of this pyramid sit the state elite, who feed off both groups through taxation and inflation.

This caste-based framework is the only honest way to analyze our current system of economic exploitation.

Inflation: The State’s Favorite Weapon of Wealth Transfer

Inflation isn’t just “rising prices.” That’s the symptom. The disease is the expansion of the money supply, typically by the central bank, which transfers wealth from the bottom and the periphery to the center.

Through Cantillon Effects, those closest to the money spigot—banks, hedge funds, and government contractors—get new dollars first, while prices are still low. Everyone else—especially wage earners and savers—gets those dollars later, after prices have risen.

This isn’t an accident. This is how the modern state funds its endless wars, bloated bureaucracies, and political payoffs—without ever raising taxes.

Young People Pay the Price, Old People Hold the Assets

Younger generations, still earning wages and trying to save, are punished by inflation:

Their labor is perishable—they can’t store it, and it loses value over time.
Their savings are eroded by the continual debasement of the dollar.
Their ability to accumulate assets—homes, land, capital—is choked off by price inflation.

Meanwhile, older generations already own durable assets: real estate, retirement accounts, commodities. They’re shielded. In fact, they often benefit from asset inflation, seeing the price of their homes and portfolios skyrocket—while younger families are priced out of entry into ownership.

This isn’t a generational failing. It’s a rigged system built to reward early adopters and punish latecomers, all powered by the central bank’s printing press.

Moral Decay: Inflation Destroys Thrift, Patience, and Wisdom

Economies run on more than money. They run on values: saving, investing, delayed gratification, responsibility. These are the values that allow wealth to compound over time and that once united generations under a shared understanding of how to succeed.

But in an inflationary world, those values are punished.

Saving cash? You’re a fool—its purchasing power disappears yearly.
Waiting to buy a house? Prices will outrun your salary.
Planning for retirement? Your dollars won't buy what they used to.

The result is a culture-wide shift to high time preference—living for the moment, borrowing to consume, rejecting advice from elders whose rules no longer apply.

Inflation doesn’t just destroy wealth. It destroys the moral framework of civilization.

Intergenerational Resentment Is the System Working as Intended

When young people look at Boomers with inherited homes, pensions, and paid-off assets, they don’t just feel envy—they feel rage. And when older people look at Millennials and Gen Z demanding student loan forgiveness or universal healthcare, they see entitlement and irresponsibility.

But both sides are missing the point: they’re not enemies—they’re victims.

The state depends on this manufactured resentment to keep us fighting each other rather than confronting the system that’s looting all of us. The media plays along. Politicians weaponize it for votes. And through it all, the real elites—those closest to the monetary faucet—walk away richer.

The Housing Market: Where Generations Collide

The housing crisis is where all of this comes to a head.

Older Americans often buy second homes or investment properties as a hedge against inflation.
Younger Americans are locked out, facing astronomical prices and burdensome debt.

This is more than a financial crisis. It’s a moral crisis, where the American dream of ownership and independence is replaced by a feudal-like dependence on landlords, banks, and government programs.

All because the state destroyed sound money and replaced it with a debt-driven Ponzi scheme.

Why Sound Money Is the Only Way Out

The solution isn’t another bailout. It’s not universal basic income. It’s not political revolution.

The only way to restore economic harmony between generations is to return to sound money—money that can’t be printed, manipulated, or inflated away by the state.

Gold, silver, and decentralized cryptocurrencies are not just financial instruments. They are tools of freedom.

They represent a return to rules-based economics, where people can plan for the future, pass on wisdom, and build lasting institutions—without fearing the rug will be pulled by central planners.

Final Thoughts: Know the System. Break Free.

What Mawhorter’s article makes clear—and what anyone paying attention can now see—is that this system is not broken. It’s working exactly as intended.

The goal is not prosperity for all. The goal is control through dependency, confusion, and class resentment.

But you don’t have to play along. You can opt out. You can protect your wealth, reclaim your time, and break free from the state’s extraction machine.

Start by understanding the system. Then take steps to exit it.

📘 Your Next Step Toward Economic Independence:

If you want to stop being a pawn in the state’s inflationary chess game, here are three actions you need to take today:

Download Bill Brocius’ free guide:
7 Steps to Protect Yourself from Bank Failure
👉 Download it now
Subscribe to Bill’s Inner Circle Newsletter ($19.95/month):
Direct insights on how to safeguard your assets, exit the fiat matrix, and stay ahead of the next collapse.
👉 Join here
Read the book they don’t want you to see:
The End of Banking As You Know It by Bill Brocius.
It’s more than a book—it’s your manual for monetary survival.