We are said to be living in the age of entitlement. Scholars and pundits declare that millennials expect special treatment, do whatever they feel like, and think they deserve to have things handed to them. In The Myth of the Age of Entitlement, Cairns peels back the layers of the entitlement myth, exposing its faults and arguing that the majority of millennials are actually disentitled, facing bleak economic prospects and potential ecological disaster. Providing insights from millennials rarely profiled in the mainstream media, Cairns redefines entitlement as a fundamental concept for realizing economic and environmental justice.

A deeply necessary intervention into the debate about the millennial generation. James Cairns explodes "the myth of the age of entitlement" and urges engagement with the demands of today's young radicals. Our futures may all depend on it. -- Sarah Jaffe, journalist and author of Necessary Trouble: Americans In Revolt James Cairns immediately grabs the reader, challenging prominent assumptions about the concept of entitlement and how it applies to millennials. He demonstrates that the myth of an entitled generation is more about an elite's effort to suppress the just and democratic demands of masses of people who see their hopes evaporating. Much like Ronald Reagan's focus on the supposed "welfare queens," the myth of an entitled generation aims to distract popular attention away from the theft of our savings, hopes, and futures by what has been termed the "1%." Cairns has presented a counter-narrative that needs to become the new common sense. -- Bill Fletcher, Jr., Former President of TransAfrica Forum, trade unionist, co-author of Solidarity Divided, and author of 'They're Bankrupting Us!' - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions

About the Author
James Cairns is Associate Professor, Social and Environmental Justice, at Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford. He is the author (with Alan Sears) of A Good Book, In Theory: Making Sense Through Inquiry (2015) and The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning Popular Power in the Twenty-First Century (2012).

Reviews
"The Myth of the Age of Entitlement helps to puncture the invented entitled status that has been foisted onto millennials and provides an array of examples where millennials are bucking this myth, demanding their democratic entitlements, and telling the Margaret Wentes of the world to STFU (an acronym that Cairns also helpfully spells out on page 133)." -- Nora Loreto, Briarpatch Magazine



Book Information
ISBN 9781442636378
Author James Cairns
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 330g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 13mm