ABSTRACT
Societies 4.0 do not seem to be able to keep their promises of happiness. And yet the premises for the construction of fairer and happier societies would seem to all be there. First of all, there is a fact: among other things, technological development seeks to preserve humans from the fatigue of exhausting jobs, enabling them to focus on highly performative areas. Nevertheless, Western societies are marked by profound anxieties, for reasons that partly still elude us. This chapter starts from an observation in order to put forward a thesis: the observation regards the imbalance of the relationship between generations that seems to characterize many Western societies. The thesis, instead, maintains that preserving fairness between generations, which I will call “transgenerational equality”, is vital to limit social injustice. The labor market and the pension system, which are going through profound changes, are exemplary areas in which to measure the importance of transgenerationality.
