Gray power: The coming senior social insecurity revolution

by Rich Broderick, July 15, 2008 • There are in essence only two political philosophies operating in the world. Though they may be called by different names and appear under the banner of different party labels, they come down to two simple propositions.

One philosophy proposes that domination and exploitation are not just acceptable means to political ends, they are the ends themselves. Furthermore, a “realistic” appraisal of power shows that individual empowerment is achieved only through collective disempowerment while collective enslavement is the price that must be paid for individual liberation. This is the political philosophy most clearly at work in the Bush kleptocracy, though it would be a mistake to believe that it doesn’t show up in the Democratic Party as well.

The other philosophy rejects both of these propositions. It holds that not only are exploitation and domination unacceptable means to the ends, but that even if they are “merely” employed as the means they will inevitably turn into the ends. The second part of this philosophy charts more positive territory. It proposes that a deeper, less self-serving analysis of real power reveals that individual empowerment can only be achieved by means of collective liberation while collective empowerment can only be achieved by means of individual liberation.

Since American culture is, to a large extent, based upon the first of these philosophies, especially as it touches upon our political economy, the long-range experience of being an American is one of progressive disempowerment and creeping enslavement, in our case not so much by the organs of the state (though there’s plenty of that going on these days, too) as by forms of social and economic bondage, like debt, status seeking, and addictive consumption.

For the most part, Americans are buffered from the reality of this disempowerment and bondage by the hectic pace of everyday life – on average, we work 400 hours more per year than our counterparts in Norway even though the per capita income of both countries is nearly identical; that translates into roughly 10 more work weeks every year – and by the superficial and short-lived distractions of consumer culture. Meanwhile, our self-importance is carefully cultivated and relentlessly flattered by a mainstream media that never stops telling us how fortunate we are, how America is Number One, the greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth, etc.

History shows that social revolutions do not necessarily occur in response to overt oppression or even grinding poverty. As often as not what triggers upheaval is the experience of a loss, or pending loss, of status by a large segment of a society. In America the experience of progressive disempowerment, though present throughout life, begins to escalate when we reach old age. To date, the elderly have been immunized to their displacement as vital members of society by an ahistorical level of prosperity, the product of the never-to-be-replicated high-income, low-cost decades immediately following World War II and New Deal programs likely to be dismantled in the near future.

The Boomer generation now approaching retirement is not going to enjoy any such cushion for the hard fall looming just ahead. It will be poorer than the current generation of the elderly, and so unable to distract itself from the radical reality of its condition with vacation homes, country club memberships and Lincoln Town Cars. It will come face to face with the social isolation, age segregation, and irrelevancy of the old in a country obsessed by youth and vitality – and the poverty and deprivation that were the plight of the old in industrial societies everywhere before the birth of social democracy in Europe, and of Social Security and Medicare in the U.S. What will be the political and social impact when 75 million Americans – or 25 percent of the entire population – encounters the naked face of disempowerment and diminished status?

I’ll tell you what’s likely to happen. They are going to be mad as hell. And unless they are also kept sedated round-the-clock, they are going to demand that changes be made to America’s winner-take-all, dog-eat-dog economic and political ethos.

Now, you may feel that the Boomers deserve whatever hardships that befall them. And you may be right. But this is irrelevant. Seventy-five million Americans – especially those who are well-educated and are used to being heard – cannot be ignored. If you think AARP carries a big stick right now, wait another 10 or 15 years and see what happens.

And what will this senior social revolution look like? It’s hard to say. The men and women now homing in on their golden years have been schooled in the values of inclusion, tolerance, and equality. It is likely that, forced back upon their uppers, they will suddenly recall en masse those lessons learned so long ago. Given that age tends to instill an instinctive conservatism – not the political, but the cultural kind —they are also not likely to rally to some neo-fascist demagogue promoting Blood and Soil.

In response to their discomfort, aging Boomers will, by sheer weight of numbers, bring about a measure — perhaps a large one — of income redistribution and demilitarization; after all, you can’t take care of 75 million old folks and also spend $1.1 trillion a year on the military. Obviously the way health care is distributed in this country will also have to change. And, as an increasingly vulnerable segment of society, they are likely to push us closer to the camp of political philosophy number 2 and away from the naked depredations of political philosophy number 1.

Forty years ago, the coming of age of the Boomer generation precipitated an earlier aborted social revolution. It fell victim of its own unexpected success and wretched excesses, both reflections of the relative immaturity and inexperience of its participants.

The counterculture of the 1960s may have failed to bring about a comprehensive realignment of American society. But this time around, the Boomers are older and presumably somewhat wiser. They may not be on the verge of ushering in a new Age of Aquarius, but all-in-all, the influence of these 75 million Americans should ultimately be good for the country.

At least it’s something to look forward to.