“Liberalism now faces the job of paying for its own success in helping people live longer”
The much larger hurdle facing contemporary liberalism is the need to reconfigure the welfare state in ways that maintain popular support while addressing a host of conflicting forces:
The aging of the population is steadily reducing the ratio of workers to retirees, expanding the “dependency ratio,” even as global competition drives governments worldwide to reduce corporate and individual taxes, cutting off the revenues to finance social welfare spending.
Other demographic trends, particularly the erosion of supportive extended family networks and the rising numbers of single elderly, serve to increase the demands for benefits from the welfare state.
Austerity policies enacted in response to high deficit and debt levels have resulted in increased voter suspicion of the “undeserving” poor and of “free riders” who are perceived as getting more out of government programs than they pay in, weakening support for the welfare state. Similarly, means testing old-age income security initiatives – particularly Social Security –would inevitably undermine universal support.
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Yeah, it was liberalism that saved us all, not advances in science and technology.
I’m pretty sure the years added on to my life do to advancements in medicine (by *gasp* Big Pharma) far outnumber the years added to my life by the welfare state.
JadeNYU on January 17, 2013 at 8:11 PM
Don’t thank liberalism, thank capitalism—the free-market kind, not the crony kind like we have now.
FloatingRock on January 17, 2013 at 8:16 PM
But of course, liberalism had nothing to do with that…
sadarj on January 17, 2013 at 8:17 PM
Isn’t that one reason they want to nationalize health care? Control medical care and lifespans?
Waggoner on January 17, 2013 at 8:19 PM
Liberalism shortens lifespans, you lying hack!
If you’re a liberal, you’re more likely to ride helmetless, screw everything that walks upright, and smoke/snort/swallow enough chemicals to qualify yourself as a Superfund site. Why? Because your entire cricket-brained philosophy centers entirely around doing whatever feels good at the moment.
Way the hell too many scientists and doctors and LEO’s have to spend their time caring for the results of your stupidity, and then very often in a literal fashion.
Like the paramedic who has to tell a liberal teenager’s parents that her stroll through a ‘diverse’ neighborhood got her raped and killed. Or the doctor who has to tell a liberal young man that his ‘endurance contest’ with the cheerleading squad netted him an incurable STD. Or the judge who has to sentence your terrified daughter to a jail term because she really thought that she could walk out of a store with clothes she couldn’t afford “because it wasn’t fair.”
Arrogant, brick-headed liberal! Try putting thinking before feeling and you’ll live longer…not to mention you won’t be such a fool!
MelonCollie on January 17, 2013 at 8:21 PM
Hacktastic.
Count to 10 on January 17, 2013 at 8:26 PM
How does medical rationing via the “Complete Lives System” add years to your life?
How does taking the blue pill make you live longer?
How do Death Panels increase longevity?
petefrt on January 17, 2013 at 8:37 PM
From what I more typically hear from liberals, the Reagan through Dubya years were a time of unfettered Randian capitalism. Don’t know if Edsall’s made those claims, but they can’t have it both ways.
theperfecteconomist on January 17, 2013 at 8:38 PM