#generational theft

Solastalgia In The Late Anthropo Scene

By the mid 70s, I harbored a belief that frenetic societal norms were approaching a tipping point. Unfortunately, I did not turn that gnawing Angst into a Greta Thunberg moment. Since that time, generational theft has only increased the enormity of that victim-laden crime to the unimaginably untenable present moment.

Solastalg…

Stick around libertarian circles long enough, and you're sure to hear entitlement programs referred to in terms of "generational theft." If you haven't already, congratulations, now you have.

What does this mean? Very briefly, it means older people are stealing the wealth, time, etc. of the young. But that's not a very precise definition. Let me submit the following:

Generational Theft: The process by which the older members of society use economic, social, and political power to obtain more from younger individuals than they offer in return.

Through most of history, generational theft has been enacted through primarily social means. Usually, parents guilted their children into providing for their old age, even if they didn't deserve it.

This was sustainable so long as population growth was maintained. If you have eight children and five are still alive when you're too old to work, it requires very little of each individual child.

Compare that to our modern political system of theft, where two workers provide for each retiree (who usually could have gone on earning an income and accumulating savings for another decade). To properly finance the Ponzi Scheme so misleadingly called Social Security, we would need a population explosion of Malthusian proportions.