8 ms·

Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

55 points by littlexsparkee 4mo ago

breppp 4mo ago
https://archive.md/HKxLR https://archive.md/HKxLR
- jayanmn 4mo ago
  > Wealth Accumulation: Older Americans hold a massive share of the nation's assets, often choosing to retain their wealth rather than pass it down early, largely due to the terrifyingly high costs of late-life healthcare. So having good social security helps everyone. Unfortunately my country ( IN) does not prioritise that part.
stein1946 4mo ago
"We are going to call the current situation anything but class warfare." boomers vs millenials, reds vs blues, south vs north, city folks vs country ones
- lava_pidgeon 4mo ago
  Maybe a political conflicts are more complex than a guy 150 years ago thought.
  - jyounker 4mo ago
    I think you're demonstrating the reluctance to admit that class conflict is a real thing. There has been a class war going on for at least four decades in the US, and the lower classes are on the loosing side. All you have to do is look at growing wage gaps in that period. We can come up with all sorts of just-so stories, but the simple answer is that the rich have captured the US government, and it is being governed primarily for their benefit.
    - zdragnar 4mo ago
      If you look at the actual numbers, the trend over the last several decades is a steadily shrinking number of people in poverty in the US. If the only thing you look at are the wage gaps, you're ignoring the very real gains the lower end of the spectrum have made. If the choice were to be poor then or poor now, I'd much rather be poor now.
      - jrflowers 4mo ago
        The number of people in the prison/jail/probation/parole systems in the US has gone up ~16x since the 1970s https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration-trends/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration... While the population of the US has gone up by ~1.6x during that same period. Seeing as convictions aren’t spread evenly across income brackets, a poor person’s chances of being in the carceral system outpacing population growth by a factor of ten doesn’t really jibe with the whole “there’s never been a better time to be poor” thing
        _DeadFred_ 4mo ago
        And contrary to boomers loved in childhood mythos of the wild west where the criminal could get a second chance, become the sheriff, etc. modern America gives no second chances. Huge sections of poorly paid labor would not be staffed if not for people having zero options. Many businesses get the majority of their cheap labor by exploiting ex-cons/people on probation and knowing someone on probation can't say 'no' because a complaint of their attitude from their boss to their PO has actual impacts on their life/freedoms.
      - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
        Since social mobility has flatlined, this has more to do with about the decline in birthrates.
        zdragnar 4mo ago
        No, the numbers I referred to are percentages. The decline in birthrates doesn't factor in.
- zdragnar 4mo ago
  None of those things are classes in the sense of the times the notion of class warfare was first pitched, and many of them cross classes. There's plenty of poor/impoverished boomers, blues, reds, city and country folk
  - nswango 4mo ago
    I think that's exactly the grandparent's point. Those conflicts are all the pretexts - they believe that it's actually class war and the other labels are all used to avoid calling it by its name.
    - zdragnar 4mo ago
      It isn't class warfare if the two (or more) sides aren't divided by class. What OP meant was the income and wealth gaps are they only things they care about, not the only things that are real.
      - TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago
        No, it's the empirical fact that the US is a plutocratic oligarchy. The oligarchy runs the economy, the government, and the media for its own benefit, and is violently opposed to anything that challenges this. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
        breppp 4mo ago
        How do you "empirically" prove something of that sort? I for one look at Trump or the previous Tea Party change in the Republican party as anything close to having a static group of elites controlling the country
        bluefirebrand 4mo ago
kpmcc 4mo ago
A little late no?
- lava_pidgeon 4mo ago
  Economist has a global audience. The report about locally specific things are outdated as they are other countries to report about.
lifestyleguru 4mo ago
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.
- laszlojamf 4mo ago
  Bush Jr was born '46. Obama (literally the next president) was born in '61. Not much of a pattern there
  - lifestyleguru 4mo ago
    Look up, Obama is the only exception.
    - CurtMonash 4mo ago
      Clinton, Bush 43, and Trump were all born within a 2 month period in 1946. JFK, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 41 all served in fairly junior roles in WW2, even if Reagan just made training films and so on. LBJ pretended to serve in the same war. (He went out on one bombing mission as some kind of observer and was awarded a Silver Star, after which he stopped bothering the military and went back to his real career.)
      - lstodd 4mo ago
        We really need some kind of interstellar war right now so that next presidents can serve in some junior roles.
  - jrflowers 4mo ago
    What year was the president born in for the past decade
eranation 4mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
atoav 4mo ago
The word becoming implies it isn't one as of 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.
- JuniperMesos 4mo ago
  The Latin word "senate" originally mean "council of elders", and is transparently related to "senex", meaning "old man". It's pretty ordinary in human society for the decision-makers to be primarily comprised of old people who have lived a long time and seen a lot.
  - ThrowawayTestr 4mo ago
    Roman senators were 40-50 https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003.09.49/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003.09.49/
    - defrost 4mo ago
      From an alternative source, that varied: What period are we talking about? In the monarchy, the Senate were all men who could no longer serve in the military, generally believed to be at least 60 or older, and generally numbered 100-200 men. With Sulla's reforms in the 1st century BCE, you had a minimum age of 31, total population of about 600, with about 5% of that group needing replacement every year. The "elder statesmen" then were for the most part those in their 40s and 50s, with the handful of Senators who were older and had beaten the odds still around, [ ... ] By the Flavian dynasty, if you had military experience you could join as early as 25 and the body was as many as 900-1200 by the end of the 2nd century CE, filled as the Emperor saw fit. ~ https://old.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/1eptqj2/do_we_have_any_sense_of_the_age_range_of_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/1eptqj2/do_we_... ( Yes, Reddit .. but one of the better (for accuracy and comment quality) corners )
      - hyhatqtv 4mo ago
lclc 4mo ago
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.
- zdragnar 4mo ago
  The majority of people being old is a relatively modern problem. One could even argue that it is a problem specific to cultures that favor low or negative birthrates.
  - amunozo 4mo ago
    Low birthrates are a constant in every industrialized country independently of culture.
    - dandaka 4mo ago
      Every country is moving in that direction
    - microgpt 4mo ago
      You say independently of culture, but doesn't industrialization change the culture in a certain way that is similar everywhere?
      - amunozo 4mo ago
        It's another way of seeing it, yes, but I don't think most people would abandon industrialization.
  - lclc 4mo ago
    The list of countries with no low or negative birthrates is very short (mostly heavily underdeveloped countries). That's why the Gerontocracy applies nearly everywhere. I doubt it was favoured, but it's result is the shift of incentives from long term (young people) to short term (old people). Democracy fails here.
ValveFan6666 4mo ago
[dead]
einpoklum 4mo ago
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.
- JuniperMesos 4mo ago
  > 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. People don't actually starve today, because food scarcity is now a problem humanity has almost-entirely solved (the exceptions are war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not anywhere in a developed country). But there are many people who are homeless who would be if housing costs were somewhat cheaper because the housing supply was bigger; and there are many people who don't get enough medical attention because the time of doctors and nurses is scarce and therefore expensive - this is why there's so much interest in using AI for medical questions and examinations.
  - constantius 4mo ago
    People do starve today, in every developed country. It's rare to die of starvation, but poverty still means skipping meals. Housing supply is scarce because of regulatory capture: homeowners and real estate companies have the strongest incentives and massive resources to keep it that way. Medical attention is scarce because of regulatory capture by those doing those jobs: the numerus clausus is still a thing, and not in any way defensible. The parent is right: scarcity today, especially in developed countries, is completely artificial, because it serves those who benefit from it.
adrithmetiqa 4mo ago
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.
- ChiperSoft 4mo ago
  It already is a plutocracy
  - bulbar 4mo ago
    I mean, a billionaire runs the country. First thing he did was to invite another billionaire and give him access to quite extensive data of every US citizen. He was even able to successfully campaign with stopping corruption which is kind of funny tbh. That's like "corruption is when billionaires bribe politicians. Just have the billionaires also being politicians - problem solved, you can't bribe yourself, right?"
  - pseudohadamard 4mo ago
    And it already is a gerontocracy, from the two dementia patients who fought for the presidency through to the geriatrics in charge of congress. In the 1970s and 1980s we used to make fun of the geriatric Kremlin leaders, most notably satirised in Whoops Apocalypse where they wheeled a new one out several times in a scene. Now the US is the same...
    - fmajid 4mo ago
      Well, "Senate" literally means "assembly of elders" (same latin root as "senior", or "senile").
znpy 4mo ago
Most of the civilised world is becoming a gerontocracy. With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?
- lifestyleguru 4mo ago
  > With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect? Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. Real estate market had never been cheap either. Exactly overlaps with falling birthrates over the last twenty years. Looking at other countries, "interestingly" Russian invasion of Ukraine basically wiped out childless millennials on both sides. Putin noticed that's the last chance to monetize the demographic opportunity and hopefully that was his last fart.
  - znpy 4mo ago
    > Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. X doubt. I partially agree but at the same time what I see with my eyes does not really align with this usual rhethoric/narrative. In my age group I see a lot of childless men and women that did manage to build their own stability (have a stable job, buy a house and whatever). Those people aren't having kids either. OTOH I have a number of friends with pets that are essentially glorified substitution of children.
    - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
      Not having kids likely allowed them that stability in the first place; now that they have it, why would they give it up? Times are precarious.
      - znpy 4mo ago
        > now that they have it, why would they give it up? a number of reasons, including avoiding to feed the gerontocracy > Times are precarious yeah i get it but at the same time, times are always precarious.
jdw64 4mo ago
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.
- TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago
  Boomers may have had harsh conditions growing up, depending where they were. But once into adulthood they had a fairly easy time of it. Jobs were plentiful, costs of essentials like housing and further education were relatively low, and they had significant disposable income. The fact many of them assume the modern economy works the same way when in fact it's a much harsher environment is a curious phenomenon.
- silvestrov 4mo ago
  Denmark does not have a problem with age. It has gone the other way: members are younger today than in the old days. Graph: https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/tal-og-fakta/gennemsnitsalder_2022.jpg https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta... Average age is 44 years !!! The oldest is 72. Youngest is 23. Majority is 30-54. https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/tal-og-fakta/aldersfordeling-kvinder_2022.jpg https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta... source: https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-er-det-yngste-nogensinde https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-...
Pikamander2 4mo ago
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.
niraj898 4mo ago
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.
- johnea 4mo ago
  > entirely dependent on voters A phenomenon otherwise known as democracy...
Simulacra 4mo ago
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.
- littlexsparkee 4mo ago
  how about: the funding cuts imminent to SS affecting younger participants; howard jarvis, prop 13, and the '70s tax decrease in CA; homeowner resistance to upzoning and building housing; muted action on climate change due to limited personal impact?
simianwords 4mo ago
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?
- littlexsparkee 4mo ago
  What about - the sacrifice of job stability and earning power in service of higher stock prices and profits for asset holders?
jmclnx 4mo ago
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 :)
- littlexsparkee 4mo ago
  When you've seen social movements fizzle out and understand that wealth outweighs turnout (the aged have both), how can you motivate people in that sort of environment? It feels rigged at that point
  - microgpt 4mo ago
    This has a name: learned helplessness
    - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
      learned helplessness is ceasing to try when something is achievable - if change isn't possible, that's just lack of control
      - microgpt 4mo ago
        Exactly the same for the one experiencing it. I don't have a crystal ball that tells whether things are possible.
phendrenad2 4mo ago
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.
- lifestyleguru 4mo ago
  > And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive. It's not like healthcare is particularly cheap and available, even in European countries with stereotypically good public universal healthcare. There is significant number of elderly receiving miserable service. So it's the rich boomers sucking up all resources?
johnea 4mo ago
America has become a wealth-ocracy, otherwise known as plutocracy. 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...

https://archive.md/HKxLR https://archive.md/HKxLR

jayanmn 4mo ago
> Wealth Accumulation: Older Americans hold a massive share of the nation's assets, often choosing to retain their wealth rather than pass it down early, largely due to the terrifyingly high costs of late-life healthcare. So having good social security helps everyone. Unfortunately my country ( IN) does not prioritise that part.

stein1946 4mo ago

"We are going to call the current situation anything but class warfare." boomers vs millenials, reds vs blues, south vs north, city folks vs country ones

lava_pidgeon 4mo ago
Maybe a political conflicts are more complex than a guy 150 years ago thought.
- jyounker 4mo ago
  I think you're demonstrating the reluctance to admit that class conflict is a real thing. There has been a class war going on for at least four decades in the US, and the lower classes are on the loosing side. All you have to do is look at growing wage gaps in that period. We can come up with all sorts of just-so stories, but the simple answer is that the rich have captured the US government, and it is being governed primarily for their benefit.
  - zdragnar 4mo ago
    If you look at the actual numbers, the trend over the last several decades is a steadily shrinking number of people in poverty in the US. If the only thing you look at are the wage gaps, you're ignoring the very real gains the lower end of the spectrum have made. If the choice were to be poor then or poor now, I'd much rather be poor now.
    - jrflowers 4mo ago
      The number of people in the prison/jail/probation/parole systems in the US has gone up ~16x since the 1970s https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration-trends/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration... While the population of the US has gone up by ~1.6x during that same period. Seeing as convictions aren’t spread evenly across income brackets, a poor person’s chances of being in the carceral system outpacing population growth by a factor of ten doesn’t really jibe with the whole “there’s never been a better time to be poor” thing
      - _DeadFred_ 4mo ago
        And contrary to boomers loved in childhood mythos of the wild west where the criminal could get a second chance, become the sheriff, etc. modern America gives no second chances. Huge sections of poorly paid labor would not be staffed if not for people having zero options. Many businesses get the majority of their cheap labor by exploiting ex-cons/people on probation and knowing someone on probation can't say 'no' because a complaint of their attitude from their boss to their PO has actual impacts on their life/freedoms.
    - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
      Since social mobility has flatlined, this has more to do with about the decline in birthrates.
      - zdragnar 4mo ago
        No, the numbers I referred to are percentages. The decline in birthrates doesn't factor in.
zdragnar 4mo ago
None of those things are classes in the sense of the times the notion of class warfare was first pitched, and many of them cross classes. There's plenty of poor/impoverished boomers, blues, reds, city and country folk
- nswango 4mo ago
  I think that's exactly the grandparent's point. Those conflicts are all the pretexts - they believe that it's actually class war and the other labels are all used to avoid calling it by its name.
  - zdragnar 4mo ago
    It isn't class warfare if the two (or more) sides aren't divided by class. What OP meant was the income and wealth gaps are they only things they care about, not the only things that are real.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago
      No, it's the empirical fact that the US is a plutocratic oligarchy. The oligarchy runs the economy, the government, and the media for its own benefit, and is violently opposed to anything that challenges this. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
      - breppp 4mo ago
        How do you "empirically" prove something of that sort? I for one look at Trump or the previous Tea Party change in the Republican party as anything close to having a static group of elites controlling the country
        bluefirebrand 4mo ago

kpmcc 4mo ago

A little late no?

lava_pidgeon 4mo ago
Economist has a global audience. The report about locally specific things are outdated as they are other countries to report about.

lifestyleguru 4mo ago

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.

laszlojamf 4mo ago
Bush Jr was born '46. Obama (literally the next president) was born in '61. Not much of a pattern there
- lifestyleguru 4mo ago
  Look up, Obama is the only exception.
  - CurtMonash 4mo ago
    Clinton, Bush 43, and Trump were all born within a 2 month period in 1946. JFK, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 41 all served in fairly junior roles in WW2, even if Reagan just made training films and so on. LBJ pretended to serve in the same war. (He went out on one bombing mission as some kind of observer and was awarded a Silver Star, after which he stopped bothering the military and went back to his real career.)
    - lstodd 4mo ago
      We really need some kind of interstellar war right now so that next presidents can serve in some junior roles.
- jrflowers 4mo ago
  What year was the president born in for the past decade

eranation 4mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

atoav 4mo ago

The word becoming implies it isn't one as of 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.

JuniperMesos 4mo ago
The Latin word "senate" originally mean "council of elders", and is transparently related to "senex", meaning "old man". It's pretty ordinary in human society for the decision-makers to be primarily comprised of old people who have lived a long time and seen a lot.
- ThrowawayTestr 4mo ago
  Roman senators were 40-50 https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003.09.49/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003.09.49/
  - defrost 4mo ago
    From an alternative source, that varied: What period are we talking about? In the monarchy, the Senate were all men who could no longer serve in the military, generally believed to be at least 60 or older, and generally numbered 100-200 men. With Sulla's reforms in the 1st century BCE, you had a minimum age of 31, total population of about 600, with about 5% of that group needing replacement every year. The "elder statesmen" then were for the most part those in their 40s and 50s, with the handful of Senators who were older and had beaten the odds still around, [ ... ] By the Flavian dynasty, if you had military experience you could join as early as 25 and the body was as many as 900-1200 by the end of the 2nd century CE, filled as the Emperor saw fit. ~ https://old.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/1eptqj2/do_we_have_any_sense_of_the_age_range_of_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/1eptqj2/do_we_... ( Yes, Reddit .. but one of the better (for accuracy and comment quality) corners )
    - hyhatqtv 4mo ago

lclc 4mo ago

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.

zdragnar 4mo ago
The majority of people being old is a relatively modern problem. One could even argue that it is a problem specific to cultures that favor low or negative birthrates.
- amunozo 4mo ago
  Low birthrates are a constant in every industrialized country independently of culture.
  - dandaka 4mo ago
    Every country is moving in that direction
  - microgpt 4mo ago
    You say independently of culture, but doesn't industrialization change the culture in a certain way that is similar everywhere?
    - amunozo 4mo ago
      It's another way of seeing it, yes, but I don't think most people would abandon industrialization.
- lclc 4mo ago
  The list of countries with no low or negative birthrates is very short (mostly heavily underdeveloped countries). That's why the Gerontocracy applies nearly everywhere. I doubt it was favoured, but it's result is the shift of incentives from long term (young people) to short term (old people). Democracy fails here.

ValveFan6666 4mo ago

[dead]

einpoklum 4mo ago

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.

JuniperMesos 4mo ago
> 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. People don't actually starve today, because food scarcity is now a problem humanity has almost-entirely solved (the exceptions are war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not anywhere in a developed country). But there are many people who are homeless who would be if housing costs were somewhat cheaper because the housing supply was bigger; and there are many people who don't get enough medical attention because the time of doctors and nurses is scarce and therefore expensive - this is why there's so much interest in using AI for medical questions and examinations.
- constantius 4mo ago
  People do starve today, in every developed country. It's rare to die of starvation, but poverty still means skipping meals. Housing supply is scarce because of regulatory capture: homeowners and real estate companies have the strongest incentives and massive resources to keep it that way. Medical attention is scarce because of regulatory capture by those doing those jobs: the numerus clausus is still a thing, and not in any way defensible. The parent is right: scarcity today, especially in developed countries, is completely artificial, because it serves those who benefit from it.

adrithmetiqa 4mo ago

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.

ChiperSoft 4mo ago
It already is a plutocracy
- bulbar 4mo ago
  I mean, a billionaire runs the country. First thing he did was to invite another billionaire and give him access to quite extensive data of every US citizen. He was even able to successfully campaign with stopping corruption which is kind of funny tbh. That's like "corruption is when billionaires bribe politicians. Just have the billionaires also being politicians - problem solved, you can't bribe yourself, right?"
- pseudohadamard 4mo ago
  And it already is a gerontocracy, from the two dementia patients who fought for the presidency through to the geriatrics in charge of congress. In the 1970s and 1980s we used to make fun of the geriatric Kremlin leaders, most notably satirised in Whoops Apocalypse where they wheeled a new one out several times in a scene. Now the US is the same...
  - fmajid 4mo ago
    Well, "Senate" literally means "assembly of elders" (same latin root as "senior", or "senile").

znpy 4mo ago

Most of the civilised world is becoming a gerontocracy. With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?

lifestyleguru 4mo ago
> With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect? Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. Real estate market had never been cheap either. Exactly overlaps with falling birthrates over the last twenty years. Looking at other countries, "interestingly" Russian invasion of Ukraine basically wiped out childless millennials on both sides. Putin noticed that's the last chance to monetize the demographic opportunity and hopefully that was his last fart.
- znpy 4mo ago
  > Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. X doubt. I partially agree but at the same time what I see with my eyes does not really align with this usual rhethoric/narrative. In my age group I see a lot of childless men and women that did manage to build their own stability (have a stable job, buy a house and whatever). Those people aren't having kids either. OTOH I have a number of friends with pets that are essentially glorified substitution of children.
  - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
    Not having kids likely allowed them that stability in the first place; now that they have it, why would they give it up? Times are precarious.
    - znpy 4mo ago
      > now that they have it, why would they give it up? a number of reasons, including avoiding to feed the gerontocracy > Times are precarious yeah i get it but at the same time, times are always precarious.

jdw64 4mo ago

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.

TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago
Boomers may have had harsh conditions growing up, depending where they were. But once into adulthood they had a fairly easy time of it. Jobs were plentiful, costs of essentials like housing and further education were relatively low, and they had significant disposable income. The fact many of them assume the modern economy works the same way when in fact it's a much harsher environment is a curious phenomenon.
silvestrov 4mo ago
Denmark does not have a problem with age. It has gone the other way: members are younger today than in the old days. Graph: https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/tal-og-fakta/gennemsnitsalder_2022.jpg https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta... Average age is 44 years !!! The oldest is 72. Youngest is 23. Majority is 30-54. https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/tal-og-fakta/aldersfordeling-kvinder_2022.jpg https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta... source: https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-er-det-yngste-nogensinde https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-...

Pikamander2 4mo ago

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.

niraj898 4mo ago

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.

johnea 4mo ago
> entirely dependent on voters A phenomenon otherwise known as democracy...

Simulacra 4mo ago

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.

littlexsparkee 4mo ago
how about: the funding cuts imminent to SS affecting younger participants; howard jarvis, prop 13, and the '70s tax decrease in CA; homeowner resistance to upzoning and building housing; muted action on climate change due to limited personal impact?

simianwords 4mo ago

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?

littlexsparkee 4mo ago
What about - the sacrifice of job stability and earning power in service of higher stock prices and profits for asset holders?

jmclnx 4mo ago

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 :)

littlexsparkee 4mo ago
When you've seen social movements fizzle out and understand that wealth outweighs turnout (the aged have both), how can you motivate people in that sort of environment? It feels rigged at that point
- microgpt 4mo ago
  This has a name: learned helplessness
  - littlexsparkee 4mo ago
    learned helplessness is ceasing to try when something is achievable - if change isn't possible, that's just lack of control
    - microgpt 4mo ago
      Exactly the same for the one experiencing it. I don't have a crystal ball that tells whether things are possible.

phendrenad2 4mo ago

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.

lifestyleguru 4mo ago
> And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive. It's not like healthcare is particularly cheap and available, even in European countries with stereotypically good public universal healthcare. There is significant number of elderly receiving miserable service. So it's the rich boomers sucking up all resources?

johnea 4mo ago

America has become a wealth-ocracy, otherwise known as plutocracy. 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...