> If Amish are allowed to opt out of social security, why can't Libertarians? The Social Security opt-out is only possible for members of certain groups, most

> If Amish are allowed to opt out of social security, why can't Libertarians? The Social Security opt-out is only possible for members of certain groups, most of which were special carve-outs added when Social Security was first implemented[1]. One of those carve-outs is for individuals which are members of a religious group that has existed continuously since 1950 and have a religious objection to Social Security (those requirements only really match a handful of religions who lobbied for this right during the introduction of Social Security). However, anyone who wants to be excluded from Social Security must have never received Social Security benefits or made Social Security contributions and must be a member of some kind of pension scheme. Some police officers and some teachers are also excluded from Social Security due to different carve-outs but still qualify because those police officers' and teachers' unions have pension funds. Libertarians don't have any carve-outs (nor do any other political group for that matter). > How is a "pension scheme" different from "social security", in any way that matters? There really isn't any difference (at least from the "is it gambling" angle). The main difference is that the pension schemes aren't government-run (unlike Social Security). It was a historical compromise (the groups lobbying against Social Security happened to be okay with being able to run their own pension schemes) which probably looks fairly strange in retrospect, but that's the way it is today. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#Joining_and_quitting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States...