What Not to Do About Gerontocracy

For two-thirds of the last generation, the United States presidency has been held by one man or another born in the summer of 1946. Of the two who broke the pattern, the latest (four years older than the others), became so obviously senile that he was ousted by tweet in the middle of an election.

The average age in the Senate today is nearly twice that of Thomas Jefferson when he penned the Declaration of Independence. The average age of a homebuyer in America has soared to 59, around the time normal people are settling into their role as grandparents. (The average age of first-time buyers is a more modest 40, by which time only the very efficient are welcoming grandchildren.)

This state of affairs has brought many liberals around to a kind of pessimism once monopolized by conservatives, and it has tipped many conservatives into a revolutionary fervor that was once the sole province of the liberals. The result is a massive, bipartisan backlash against the decrepit oligarchs who control America and her treasures.

But the only thing worse than being governed by the old is being governed by the young. This is the irresistible lesson of Samuel Moyn’s Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It. In 215 light but repetitive pages, Moyn outlines an America in which young citizens are cut off from political control, financial security, and institutional prestige by an aging elite that clings to all three for its own selfish purposes. As the only viable solution he presents a heady mixture of socialist economics, identity politics, and state-directed feel-goodism.