Redistributionism weaponizes envy into policy. Every. Single. Time. And occasionally, it veers into murderous policy, as the past century-plus have repeatedly taught us, on the promise of "justice."
Perhaps no better example displays this than a guest essay in the New York Times by Samuel Moyn. The Yale professor of law and history has a new book coming out titled “Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It,” although the last part becomes readily apparent in this column. Moyn argues that older Americans "hoard" jobs and money they earned, and that government policy should pillage seniors in order to redistribute what they've earned to those who didn't:
“Ageism” identifies an enduring phenomenon: the mistreatment of older people for no reason other than being older. Americans in middle age and beyond are routinely passed over for opportunities because of the irrelevant fact of a number on paper or how they act and look after getting older.
In today’s world, the unfair discrimination they cite coexists with a different kind of unfairness: a gerontocratic society in which the old control ever more power and wealth, leading to overrepresentation in political life and unequal power in social life.
Ahem. Yes, the Senate can look like God's waiting room at times, and the House isn't that much better. However, these politicians get elected to these offices by voters who – for better or worse – make those choices directly. Moreover, it's not terribly difficult to understand why politicians tend to be older. We elect people for a variety of reasons, but usually those who make it to Congress or the White House do so based on long careers prior to running for those offices. Voters, unsurprisingly, value experience and reliability when casting ballots for politicians, except in certain precincts of Dearborn and the Bronx.
As for "wealth," that tends to accumulate in life as people maintain successful careers and make wise choices. Again unsurprisingly, voters tend to see those qualities as positives in elections. Responsible adults plan for the future, put money aside, maintain real property to increase stability, mainly in anticipation of eventual retirement. Almost by definition, younger people are further behind simply because of time rather than a lack of opportunity or access.
Everyone but those operating from class resentment can figure that much out. However, this rational outcome apparently looks like a crisis to Moyn, who wants the government to redistribute both power and wealth away from The Olds and hand it off to The Youngs:
It is not ageist to ask whether older people should be required to give more to younger Americans and national priorities — it is critical to the future of our democracy and society. America needs to confront gerontocracy before the system collapses under the weight of its inequality and injustice.
Older Americans deserve a say over the future even when they might not live to see it. But they do not deserve the stranglehold over it they currently enjoy through overrepresentation in elections, which produces too many regressive policies and too many seniors in the highest offices.
Double ahem. It is in fact explicitly ageist to assume that just because people are older that they are exercising a "stranglehold" as a class as well as individually. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the "gerontocracy" is what creates "regressive" policies, nor that the seniors drive policies to which Moyn objects. The poster boy for redistributionism at the moment is a crank from Vermont who is approaching nonagenarian status, abetted and cheered by the remnants of the Age of Aquarius generation.
Despite calling ageism a "scourge," Moyn proceeds to accuse older Americans of being what's wrong with the entire country for, er, wanting to keep working and responsibly planning for their future:
After mandatory retirement was eliminated in most fields in the late 20th century, older workers held on to some of the best positions. The United States has one of the highest wage inequality by age of any country in the world, and the numbers keep getting worse: The pay gap between workers over 55 and those under 35 widened 61 percent between 1979 and 2018. The share of workers over 55 in the work force rose 88 percent in those same years.
Why might that be? Perhaps over 60 million abortions since Roe v Wade have something to do with that. Add to that the constant attacks on the nuclear family by redistributionists, and now the mainstreaming of sterilization via pediatric sex-change therapies, and it's not much of a mystery why the American work force keeps skewing older. The solution for that is to increase procreation through policies that support families and discourage teen sterilization, not to force seniors into retirement and retreat.
Matt Taibbi argues that Moyn goes beyond collectivist redistribution and right into Darwinism and worse:
Moyn cites the example of apes and chimpanzees who establish hierarchies based on “brute strength, and therefore physical vitality” and can “marginalize faltering alpha males” who then “sometimes go into exile, which means death.” Humans, by unpleasant contrast, traditionally value the wisdom of elders, so achieving “intergenerational equity” may require (here Moyn quotes the Succession character Shiv Roy) “a good old-fashioned dinosaur cull.”
The piece doesn’t just seethe with collectivist bloodlust, it’s incorrect. Moyn confuses a handful of old politicians and billionaires with the wider category of “old people,” who far from being antisocial hoarders have been repeatedly victimized by public and private interests over the last twenty-plus years, always for the same offense: being good citizens. I’d say it’s astonishing that a Yale professor could not know this, but sadly it isn’t. As someone who had to cover the ripoffs, it’s lunacy ...
What should be done with such people? Systematic mass suicide might work!
After all, the “circumpolar peoples such as the Yupik” embraced senicide, where “stabbing, hanging, and strangling were available methods,” along with “abandoning people so that they froze or starved to death.” Also, “Jack London dramatized the Inuit practice of senicide through exposure,” while elsewhere, “live burial or burning, or even a slash across the throat, did the trick.” Of course “killing the elderly” wasn’t just limited to icy lands, as the Greeks and Romans also flirted with it, and fellow Yalie and Japanese economist Yusuke Narita more recently.
It sounds like Moyn watched Logan's Run recently ... and took all the wrong lessons from it.
It's always interesting to see what progressives will sacrifice for The Greater Good. Usually, it's everyone but themselves.
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