Manufacturing the “Savage” Youth
Chronic youth unemployment and idleness, particularly in communities of color, are not a result of laziness but the deliberate production of a surplus population. Mamdani’s analysis of the colonial economy reveals that capitalism requires a reserve army of labor to discipline wages; idle youth are that army in waiting. This state-enforced idleness is then pathologized, and the youth themselves are framed as “savage” threats to social order, which in turn justifies increased policing and the school-to-prison pipeline. The liberal solution of summer job programs is a temporary pacifier that does not change the structural lack of permanent, dignified work. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is a direct attack on this logic. We must fight for a federal job guarantee that provides a living-wage, unionized job for every young person who wants one. Furthermore, we must invest in the creation of worker-owned cooperatives and community-run cultural and recreational centers that provide meaningful engagement and skill-building. This dismantles the category of the “surplus native youth” and forges a political identity based on their role as builders of a new society.
