Welcome to the honorable club with with Italy and Germany. What's very specific is that the old pull up the ladder. They don't pass the knowledge, nor experience, not a single cent trickles down, no power is delegated. Even the opposite, with help of immediate family they vacuum up the money and power even further.
What's quite mindblowing for an outside observer is that the birth year of American president has been almost constant since 2001. I know that millennials are irresponsible and unreliable brats, but c'mon... they're over 40 now.
The median age of the population in the US is 39. The median age of the Senate is 65. In other countries 65 is retirement age. So you could say, yes "America" (the US) is a gerontocracy.
It's the basic 'flaw' of Democracy: Since the majority of the people are old, they will vote in the interest of old people.
That's why the pension system will never be fixed.
Biden, Trump, Schumer, Feinstein, McConnel say: "What's that, sonny? Ask me again after my afternoon nap."
----
Anyway, the article's author seems to be quite the hard-line capitalist:
> "The only plausible way to keep public pensions solvent... is for retirement ages to rise as life expectancy does."
So, even though society's productive capacity is incredibly high, having risen and risen over two centuries of industrialization and mechanization - supposedly the problem is that older people are slacking off. This is (mostly) false. Most of the basic material wants we face today are artificial. That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc. That's not to say that there are never shortages of materials or of trained professionals; but what the author is essentially saying is that working people need to shed blood, sweat, and tears more so that the insufficient share of the fruit of their labor, that actually goes back to them (= us), becomes sufficient.
This is not dissimilar from a feudal lord, who takes most produce as tax, telling his tenant farmer that if he wants to have enough to feed his children, he should get some of them to also work the fields so that there's enough to go around.
America may be become a gerontocracy but it’s far more likely to be a plutocracy first and that will cause more long term harm. Old people die eventually, but the ultra rich keep it in the family.
Most countries are facing similar problems. In the US, it's the millennial problem. In France, it's HENRY (High Earner, Not Rich Yet). In Korea, it's the '20-something male' issue. In Japan, it's the 'geneki sedai' (working generation). In China, it's 'neijuan' (involution).
The common thread is that these are generations that climbed the class ladder early on, when infrastructure was lacking and there were opportunities. They had many children, jobs were plentiful, and medical advances delayed death, which meant that upper-level positions never opened up and the older generation just stayed put.
The Boomer generation naturally worked hard when infrastructure was scarce, and they succeeded under harsh physical conditions, so they find it hard to understand the generations below them. Meanwhile, the younger generations are despairing over the fact that the class ladder has been pulled up. Success is a universal desire, after all.
The older generation was in a harsh environment, but they were seated in the front row of a growing pie. The subsequent generations have better consumer goods and education, but the entry price for core assets and status has gone up, making success much harder to achieve
At the core, the real issue is the need for wealth redistribution. But in that process, the people who failed to climb the Boomers' class ladder are left behind. And crucially, as societies modernize, people tend to have fewer children, which shifts voting power away from the younger generations, making the problem even worse. In other words, everyone knows the future needs to support the youth, but doing so would cut into their own pensions and make their old age harder. And since most people are unwilling to give up their vested interests, the situation becomes even more difficult.
The average age of Congressmen has increased, but much of that can be attributed to modern medicine and gerrymandering and the incumbent effect letting existing Congressmen stay in office for longer periods of time.
As far as the presidency goes, it's hard to draw any strong conclusions due to the small sample size and flawed two-party system. Our last two presidents have been very old, but neither was particularly popular with the voter base as a whole. Plus, Bill Clinton and Obama were very young and were elected just a decade or two prior and enjoyed a higher margin of victory and approval rating.
Not entirely, you can see the mayor of NYC who is very young, thats entirely dependent on voters, for instance, my country's PM and most of the ministers this time are at the age of around 35-40.
I'm not sure how I feel about this article, looking at the government, yes, it does resemble a gerontocracy given who the most powerful are. But I don't think that translates to the rest of society.
This article’s thesis is far too simplistic. For one: let’s agree that USA is ruled by the elites who are pushing AI and technology broadly. How does this reflect gerontocracy? Old ppl like tech and AI? What am I missing as a non American?
You can write about these issues all you want, but the fact remains the young do not vote (period).
When I was young, the voting age became 18, me and all my friends could not wait until we could vote and we kept it up as we aged. Many in my generation were that way. Then all of a sudden the young stopped voting.
So if young people want to change things, get involved with politics get off your phones and make noise. But it seems there almost is a conspiracy is going on these days to distract the young from "real life" to keep them out of politics :)
No, it is currently a temporary gerontocracy. The Boomers were such a big generation that everything bent to their will. When they were young, the government catered to what young people wanted. When they were in their 40s the world catered to what the 40-year-olds wanted. And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive.
20 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 42.9 ms ] threadboomers vs millenials, reds vs blues, south vs north, city folks vs country ones
What's quite mindblowing for an outside observer is that the birth year of American president has been almost constant since 2001. I know that millennials are irresponsible and unreliable brats, but c'mon... they're over 40 now.
The median age of the population in the US is 39. The median age of the Senate is 65. In other countries 65 is retirement age. So you could say, yes "America" (the US) is a gerontocracy.
----
Anyway, the article's author seems to be quite the hard-line capitalist:
> "The only plausible way to keep public pensions solvent... is for retirement ages to rise as life expectancy does."
So, even though society's productive capacity is incredibly high, having risen and risen over two centuries of industrialization and mechanization - supposedly the problem is that older people are slacking off. This is (mostly) false. Most of the basic material wants we face today are artificial. That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc. That's not to say that there are never shortages of materials or of trained professionals; but what the author is essentially saying is that working people need to shed blood, sweat, and tears more so that the insufficient share of the fruit of their labor, that actually goes back to them (= us), becomes sufficient.
This is not dissimilar from a feudal lord, who takes most produce as tax, telling his tenant farmer that if he wants to have enough to feed his children, he should get some of them to also work the fields so that there's enough to go around.
With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?
The common thread is that these are generations that climbed the class ladder early on, when infrastructure was lacking and there were opportunities. They had many children, jobs were plentiful, and medical advances delayed death, which meant that upper-level positions never opened up and the older generation just stayed put.
The Boomer generation naturally worked hard when infrastructure was scarce, and they succeeded under harsh physical conditions, so they find it hard to understand the generations below them. Meanwhile, the younger generations are despairing over the fact that the class ladder has been pulled up. Success is a universal desire, after all.
The older generation was in a harsh environment, but they were seated in the front row of a growing pie. The subsequent generations have better consumer goods and education, but the entry price for core assets and status has gone up, making success much harder to achieve
At the core, the real issue is the need for wealth redistribution. But in that process, the people who failed to climb the Boomers' class ladder are left behind. And crucially, as societies modernize, people tend to have fewer children, which shifts voting power away from the younger generations, making the problem even worse. In other words, everyone knows the future needs to support the youth, but doing so would cut into their own pensions and make their old age harder. And since most people are unwilling to give up their vested interests, the situation becomes even more difficult.
As far as the presidency goes, it's hard to draw any strong conclusions due to the small sample size and flawed two-party system. Our last two presidents have been very old, but neither was particularly popular with the voter base as a whole. Plus, Bill Clinton and Obama were very young and were elected just a decade or two prior and enjoyed a higher margin of victory and approval rating.
A phenomenon otherwise known as democracy...
When I was young, the voting age became 18, me and all my friends could not wait until we could vote and we kept it up as we aged. Many in my generation were that way. Then all of a sudden the young stopped voting.
So if young people want to change things, get involved with politics get off your phones and make noise. But it seems there almost is a conspiracy is going on these days to distract the young from "real life" to keep them out of politics :)
There are plenty of young wealthy people that are contributing to fucking the place up.
I'd trade an elon or a suckerberg for a Bernie any day...