Until the advent of the modern world-system, most people had been living, for some 10,000 years, in basically agricultural societies, in which perhaps 80% of the population were engaged in food-producing activities, if not more. In these societies, not too many people survived to what is today considered the age at which one is elderly, that is, 65 years. Furthermore, these elderly normally did not stop working, although their output was no doubt reduced by physical difficulties of all sorts. The key element to remember is that there were not too many such people as a percentage of the population. So these societies typically "honored" the elderly, considering them founts of wisdom and persons deserving to be repaid what they had done for others by being taken care of in their old age.

This social attitude slowly but radically changed in the modern era. In the first place, many more persons who had survived the perils of infancy were able to reach 65 years of age. In the second place, the birth rate went down whenever and wherever there came to be social pressure on adults in their prime to invest actual money on children (education and child care, primarily). As a result, the age pyramid began to alter, and the elderly became an ever larger percentage of the population.

The initial crisis occurred in the more industrialized countries in the nineteenth century. Urban workers were not able to sustain their elderly family members who thereupon risked a deteriorating degree of poverty, even starvation. As the problem became more severe and the social protest greater, governments began to respond by creating one form or another of "old age insurance." When these systems began, the amount of money that was given to individuals was absurdly low, and therefore the total cost to the state was low (involving therefore low amounts of taxes). In fact, of course, people then (or now), who had enjoyed a moderate income during their work years, were seldom willing to live in later years on the small income that state old age assistance offered. Those who could afford it arranged for supplemental insurance, whether paid for by themselves or by employers or by some combination thereof.

Inexorably the curves went up - more elderly as a proportion of the population; the political demand for higher old age assistance payments; an expectation of a decent life style when one was elderly. Hence the social costs (and the taxation) went up. In the last twenty years, as a result, there has been much discussion of a coming time when, it is claimed, these assistance programs would no longer be viable. Higher payments and fewer people to pay current premiums would add up to a deficit in the fund. And so for twenty years or so there has been a movement to "solve" this problem, essentially by reducing the payments, having them start later (than at 65 years), and "privatizing" them (on the grounds that the stock market would yield higher returns for the individual than more conservative government bonds). In addition to this discussion in the wealthy countries, the IMF has been putting direct pressure on the poorer countries to cut back on social insurance.

Of course, these are all bookkeeping manipulations. The essential question is how we will decide to divide up the overall pot of accumulated resources. Picture three broad groups: those who are active in the work force (largely between 18-65 years); children and those still in school (largely 0-25 years); those who have "retired" from the active work force (largely 55-90).

In those agricultural communities of yore, there would be some system of sharing (the work and the consumable items) that was decided on in some way. In these decisions the elderly (a very small group) usually had a large say. What the modern world did was to shift decision-making primarily to those in the active work force. Social insurance began to tilt it back a bit in favor of the elderly. What the attack on social insurance today is doing is shifting it back to those in the active work force. This isn't only an intergenerational conflict, of course. It is also a class conflict. Social insurance involves a transfer (a small transfer, but a transfer nonetheless) from those who have a comfortable income to those who are poor. And those who are poor are more demanding these days, less helpless and less accommodating to the comfortable ones.

Looking at it this way makes it clear that there is no "problem" to solve, only decisions to make. At any given point of time, there is just so much social surplus. Those who work want to spend it on themselves, and maybe on their children. They are less enthusiastic about honoring the elderly by spending it on them. Those who are elderly feel they merit the respect due them in return for their earlier work and the respectability that comes with a decent standard of living. Those who are children find it hard to have their own voice, and largely depend on the advocacy of adults.

Take something as straightforward as medical expenditures. The costs of modern medicine are high - high wages for the health workers, high costs of medical machinery, high costs of drugs. So, in a triage (and there is always a triage), should the money go to a 6-year old child, a 40-year old adult, or a 75-year old elderly person? Stated abstractly this way, who could choose? One could answer generically: one-third of the whole to each. Or one could do a merit ranking: Which of the three cases is the most urgent? In which case will be the results be the most complete or last the longest?

But neither an across-the-board formula nor a supposedly meritocratic triage will really work, if for no other reason than that individuals will constantly combine to subvert such a system by getting favored treatment for themselves or their loved ones. What is urgent is not some tinkering with the existing imperfect system but collective debates about intergenerational allocations. The answers are not self-evident, and it would not be easy to reach consensus. Nor, once a consensus were reached, would the question cease to be reopened constantly. But how much healthier such an open discussion would be. It would limit (not eliminate) class advantage, and it would limit (not eliminate) the advantages of being located in wealthy versus poorer countries.

Are we morally so far behind those agricultural societies of yesteryear that we cannot honor the elderly, take proper care of the children, and still afford a reasonable life style for those in the work force?

Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

 

Email this Commentary to a colleague

______________________________________________

Go to List of Commentaries

Go to Fernand Braudel Center Homepage