But wait! There's something missing from this picture. Just because there are more retirees than workers, does it necessarily follow that the workers are grievously burdened? Must the retirees ride around on the shoulders of the workers, as the old man of the sea rode Sinbad?
Things are not that grim. The fact is, the work force has a hidden companion to share the work. Work is hardly ever accomplished by current efforts alone, now or in any other era. Typically, people at work use equipment; they use resources, they use know-how; they use organization. All of these are the results of previous human endeavor, and amplify the result of present efforts many times over. The output of the work force in any given period is only partly due to that period's toil; a much greater part is the delayed fruit of earlier inputs. Past effort is the hidden companion of present effort.
Some inputs which still contribute to current output date back to the dawn of humanity. Others may be fairly credited to more recent generations.
Here comes the point: what's affordable in the way of support for the elderly, what's fair, depends on what the elderly did in their own time to make production easier for their successors.
Suppose that in the year 2030, every working couple will have to produce enough to support a retired couple as well as itself. Yet suppose also that by 2030, the accumulation of capital, the advance of technology, and improved organization make it as easy to support three couples as it was to support just one couple a generation earlier. On that supposition, the two workers of 2030 have nothing to complain of; they are even ahead of the game. The retirees, like many a generation before them, have left an inheritance in which the working generation begins to share even before the elders have departed the scene.
That, of course, is only a supposition. We can suppose whatever we want. Suppose that a generation of elders reach retirement age, having only maintained the productivity of the economy as they found it. Should they be rewarded for not having run it into the ground? After all, they had it in their hands to do so. Maybe just staying level was difficult in their time. The proposition is at least debatable.
Suppose even worse: the elder generation was irresponsible and diminished even the common heritage with which it started. In that case, the younger generation has real grounds for resentment.
Social accountancy is almost as contentious a subject as theology, so let's postpone the question whether the baby boomers are currently on the right road to justify their someday upkeep as pensioners. What's more to the point is that if we're going to have a Social Security system, we should at least aim to arrange it on the most humane of plans: that each generation of workers should provide the actual wherewithal for its subsequent retirement, in the form of equipment, resources, and know-how that make output easier for subsequent workers. To make this work, it isn't enough that the current workers generate paper claims on the future by paying into a fund which they turn around and spend on themselves. They have to do something real for the future.
That brings us to an ongoing debate about the very foundations of Social Security.
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