Young versus old: the politics of generational envy
[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan.”]
I’ve seen it for years and years and years online: the idea that the Boomer generation has screwed the younger ones. It’s often advanced by 40-somethings or younger, who feel insufficiently flush with cash and that the world hasn’t rewarded them in the manner they think they deserve. The idea that previous generations struggled and that many still struggle (I have friends my age with little savings, for example) is brushed aside. And the opinions of older people are shrugged off with the dismissive, “Okay, Boomer.”
It’s not unusual to wish that the Boomers would die already. Just shuffle off this mortal coil so that the young can get the spoils. And this is usually said with no sense of shame whatsoever.
I’ve seen most of this in the comments sections of blogs and MSM articles, as well as on social media of many kinds. It’s said not with humorous tolerance but powerful hatred and envy. But envy has now become perfectly okay, a kind of badge of virtue with “microlooters” and the like.
Now the New York Times is getting into the act:
The New York Times on old people:
“It is not ageist to ask whether older people should be required to give more to younger Americans… Older Americans favor restrictions on immigration… there is a correlation between age and resistance to policies to halt the overheating of the planet… impose age ceilings on political offices… Older Americans own much of the most desirable real estate… It is not ageist, finally, to impose policies to transfer jobs, houses and wealth down the generational chain.”
Yale law professor Samuel Moyn, whom I interviewed once, always seemed generous and reasonable, even when our politics differed. But unless it’s an elaborate meta-joke, the above column and forthcoming book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Wealth and Power in America advance some of the most intellectually vicious ideas I’ve ever seen. The Godwin’s Law factor alone is a shocker.
Moyn observes that people of years have accumulated money and influence and contrives to end the “tyranny of the old” by having “the elderly divested of political power, wealth, and property,” because reasons. The title of the Times piece, “Older Americans Are Hoarding America’s Potential,” carries the obscene lefty connotation that no one really owns anything and the elderly, by dint of living too long to begin with, and having a generally shitty quality of life compared to the young, and voting incorrectly/selfishly (hilarious, in the context of open scheming to seize their savings) and wasting resources “playing for time” for “another day, month, or year among loved ones” makes them lousy stewards of what the author unironically calls “our inheritance,” i.e. their homes and bank accounts.
That’s by Matt Taibbi, who is 56 years old. Young to me, but not young.
Moyn’s work doesn’t surprise me at all – there’s a huge market for this sort of thing, based on the ideas I’ve seen widely disseminated online. Taibbi is absolutely correct that this is part of an attack on private property, based on the idea that one can decide who should own what and how much, and act accordingly by confiscating the goods of the supposedly non-virtuous.
NOTE: I’ve written on this topic of inter-generational rage before, but at the moment I can’t find the piece. But this post is somewhat relevant to the topic.
NOTE II: I saw the movie Zorba the Greek in a movie theater when it first came out in 1964. I was young, and I didn’t like it and have never looked at it again. But various scenes have stuck with me, and not in a good way. So, this one comes to mind. Of course, the people confiscating the dead woman’s goods here actually are dirt-poor, and they are of all ages and not just young. The deceased woman wasn’t exactly what you’d call rich, either. So the parallel isn’t very good, although the envy impulse is there. Here’s the scene, and watching it now it seems even more chilling than I recall:
This trend is going to become even more pronounced as Medicare and SS continue to consume ever-larger portions of the federal budget on the way to fiscal perdition.
It’s not just a question of envy, of course. It’s the collective failure of older people to have had enough children when they were young, so that their needs would have young people available to provide for them, that will be the real problem in the next thirty years.
And it is, unfortunately, collective, it does not matter if I personally had 12 children, although odds are I personally will be better off for having had them. The problems with the economy as a whole will still be there.
Envy is, in and of itself, a terrible thing. It’s the psychological “sin” that poisons the mind. The second worst thing about this topic, is the logical error and short-termism of zero-sum thinking. That thinking suggests that there is a fixed “pie” and if you get more, that means I get less.
Capitalism, and the advancement of human society really, is about building and growth.
Another interesting dichotomy in thinking on this topic, is the historical focus on human longevity and more recently, its reverse. So there are the classics, the hunt for the fountain of youth, the legend of the holy grail, The Picture of Dorian Gray, etc.
Some of our tech titans, like Peter Thiel (I think), have lamented that this traditional interest in longevity seems to have faded away to some extent, and in some circles is replaced with the idea that the old are merely a burden on the younger generations, particularly with socialistic healthcare systems like the one in the UK. Any advancements in medical research that lead to increased life spans, can be seen as a mistake, or misguided research spending.
*sigh*
For myself – I am, if you stretch the definition like a rubber band — a very late Boomer. 1954, came to maturity/voting age in the Seventies. I caught New Math and disco in the neck, and have felt like I have spent my life cleaning up after the enormous main bulge of Boomers. Sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, the enthusiastic trashing of just about every convention there was, which made the US relatively stable, secure, a nice place to live if you weren’t rich … in fact, were barely middle-class. It was a good place before they got to it, and a wreck after they moved on, like the circus parade through town, leaving piles of manure and trashed streets in their wake.
I suppose some of this may be tied to the increasing life span and the improving quality of life for many in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. My husband and I remember our parents’ generation, and how ill or weak they were compared to us now.
But this kind of talk goes with the loss of religious belief and practice in the U.S. as well. “Honor thy father and thy mother” is becoming, “Move on, geezers, and give us your stuff.” (Not in our family, happily.)
When I first read the op Ed by Moyn I was repelled by his smug tone and frustrated by his weak logic and failure to reconcile numerous inconsistencies in his arguments. As one example, he posits that the geezers are hanging onto their loot because Medicare doesn’t cover long term care. Solution? Expand Medicare to cover it. But Medicare is already facing a fiscal cliff, in large part due to a demographic imbalance between funders and users of the program. So his solution exacerbates the problem and we are back to needing to force the dinosaurs to give up their hard earned wealth.
I am not sure what the definition of Boomer might be. I will be 91 in a couple of months–speaking optimistically now–and I don’t know where I fit, although I do meet the definition of old.
I think that at one time my crowd were called ‘depression babies’; but, I am not sure that anyone really knows what a depression is at this point.
I do know that when I look at children and grandchildren, I marvel at their luxurious life style compared to what my generation knew at comparable ages. It seems that hardship is anything less than two bath living quarters and sharing cars. I also see those who likely qualify as boomers subsidizing life styles. Of course, coping with the cost of living in California can be a challenge.
While I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt for living so long and taking SS and Medicare money away from younger folks, I console myself with a glass of wine. Then I reflect, first, that I did not plan to live so long; it just happened through no fault of my own. And, after all, I paid into those programs every cent that was asked over many decades, and still do for that matter. (I assume that everyone knows that Medicare isn’t free on a means tested basis, and SS income is taxed on the same basis; despite any rhetoric that we heard)
Before identifying people living too long, or having too few children, as the biggest problems; it might help to quit throwing money at people who never bought in. Alternatively, we could think about a Canadian or European solution.
Heaven knows how much major moolah is going to be required of me (plus spouse) when I / we need to be cared for in assisted living / nursing home / hospice care.
One item that is non-negotiable is my / our desire / determination to NOT be dependent on my / our children or on “society” when I / we need the assistance.
Given that non-negotiability, my / our heirs are lovingly welcome to share what moolah remains *after* we’ve availed ourselves of what we found we needed, in accordance with the provisions of our wills / trusts / payable-on-death accounts.
My Grandma warned about this 20yrs ago!
Yup, MJR, we are going to be able to pay for our care, if necessary, and our kids won’t have to do it.
Sgt. Mom:
I have little doubt that you sincerely feel the way you describe, but it’s based on some inaccuracies.
First of all, you don’t have to stretch anything to call yourself a Boomer. You are actually close to right smack in the middle of the Baby Boomer Generation, the very model of a modal Boomer. “Boomer” is defined as the generation born between 1946 and 1964. You’re actually on the early side and not the late side, but close to the middle.
The cultural changes of the 1960s which tore down many of the older standards, plus the Vietnam War opposition, featured people born in the early portion of the Boomers generation as followers rather than leaders. The movement was driven by people from the previous generation, the so-called Silent Generation. Just to take a few examples:
Tom Hayden, antiwar activist, born 1939
Jane Fonda, antiwar activist, born 1937
Jerry Rubin, “Yippie” activist, born 1938
Abbie Hoffman, “Yippie” activist, born 1936
Timothy Leary, drug promoter, born 1920 (he was of the Greatest Generation)
Huey Newton, black activist, born 1942
Malcolm X, black activist, born 1925 (Greatest Generation)
Bernardine Dohrn, Weather Underground, born 1942
Bill Ayers, Weather Underground, born 1944
I could go on and on. The Beatles, all born prior to the Boomer Generation (early 1940s). Rolling Stones, same, except for Ronnie Wood (1947). Eldridge Cleaver (1935), Bob Dylan (1941), Janis Joplin (1943), Ken Kesey (1935), Frank Zappa (1940), Ram Dass (1931).
Then there were the professors – all of older generations – who gave in to the younger generation when it was the professors and college administrators who should have known better.
I could continue with this, but the gist of it is that the Boomers were too young to be the movers and shakers of this particular revolution.
Oldflyer:
Please see this comment of mine for a discussion of Boomers and how they’re defined.
I agree that many people in younger generations seem to feel entitled to a standard of living that we didn’t expect to achieve till much later, if at all. Then again, many start out with debt (huge college loans) that most of us didn’t have. That’s one of the things that hampers them the most.
Yale law professor Samuel Moyn is clearly wallowing in 3 of the 7 Deadly Sins; greed, envy and wrath. Given he’s also a Yale law professor, it’s very likely that he’s full of prideful arrogance as well.
Those among the young who share his POV shall reap what they’ve sown and given their equal embrace of those deadly sins, their harvest will be a bitter one indeed.
Most people I know and am friends with that are in my generational cohort – Boomers – come from modest blue collar families and have achieved and accumulated what wealth they have from working and saving. None of us are super rich but we do live comfortably. All of us have children that also put in the time and effort to do well for their families. In my case my children encourage their mother and me to do what we want, spend what we can, to live the life that we have earned.
All of which is a long winded way of saying this article that you reference is, to me and mine, a clickbait bunch of nonsense.
Demographic decline — birth rates below replacement rate — afflicts most of the developed world, not just the US.
Urbanization, birth control, costs of raising children, plus medical advances allowing people to live longer mean that young workers will be supporting more older retirees.
No country seems to have cracked this problem. Some are doing much worse than America.
It’s serious.
The planet is “overheating” and “policies” are going to “halt” it, as long as we can get those pesky boomers out of the way. Hahaha.
Neo, re your 8:29pm comment: yes yes yes, I have made that point over and over again, in the process of making the larger point that the cultural trends usually being denounced by the boomer-haters cannot be attributed to any single more or less arbitrarily defined cohort.
We–boomers–apparently make a good collective scapegoat though. The amount of boomer hate I run into online is sometimes pretty disturbing. Just a day or two ago on Substack I saw some notes from a young woman who asserted that “the boomers” are totally lacking in concern for anyone but themselves. No qualification, no limitation, just a flat statement. And she seemed a little surprised and annoyed that anyone would argue with this obvious fact.
And as for that prof: yeah, the creepiest thing is the assumption that “we” have the right to seize and distribute the property of old people.
Young Boomer men were screwed over by the Greatest Generation who sent us off to fight a war they started and wouldn’t let us win.
Another perspective. I could go on.
The little looters in black remind me of two things: the Jawas in “Star Wars” and the miners at the funeral at the beginning of “Paint Your Wagon”, who throw the recently deceased aside so they can get at the gleaming gold dust they discovered in his grave.
I was born in Oct, 1946. So makes me a Leading Edge BB. My Wife was born in Dec, 1946. We worked hard, saved, made some good decision, and a few lucky ones. My Wife taught HS and JrH for 30 years, retired at age 55 with a good pension. I bounced around in jobs (fired a lot of times) and at age 57 was out of work. Didn’t bother in looking for another one. We put money into IRA’s and 401’s, bought annuities. I get SS, my Wife didn’t until last yr when they changed the law. Now, after my Wife’s passing, my SS and annuities are what I have. Doing ok.
Our parents were the Greatest Gen. My Dad earned his GED in 1947. He retired from the Navy, never make a great deal of money in the Service. Got a good job that paid.
We worked for what we have. Benefited from inheritances from Parents. No kids, just didn’t happen. I owe nothing to the younger generations. Go work for it, like our Parents and we did. SgtMom, all generations have Sex, our parents had Swing. I never even thought of using illegal Drugs.
It’s not agist to want those things? It’s infantile to demand that your elders support you well into adulthood.
neo on May 7, 2026 at 8:29 pm:
“… featured people born in the early portion of the Boomers generation as followers rather than leaders. The movement was driven by people from the previous generation, the so-called Silent Generation. Just to take a few examples: [followed by your amazing collection of pre-boomer “influencers”, something I have not seen presented anywhere else in this context.]
… “I could continue with this, but the gist of it is that the Boomers were too young to be the movers and shakers of this particular revolution.”
Agree 1000% with you and with Mac at 11:38pm.
The official early Boomers were not allowed to vote until they reached 21, being too early to catch the 26th Amendment, which then allowed later Boomers to vote at age 18, but this was all after the 1965, 1965, and Great Society legislation the pushed the Leftists to the front of the line in so many areas.
Was there a “failure to communicate” from the Boomers’ parents and grandparents that they needed to save and invest: for college, for children, for retirement, healthcare, etc.? In our house it was never that explicit but somehow it was conveyed that reasonable frugality was the best path to follow, especially to include delayed gratification when necessary. We just followed the “success sequence” to … well … to success.
But I also understand that the 1929 market crash decimated a lot of peoples’ savings, and moved them to a position of “the government has to support us” because the market is too volatile and dangerous, etc. Actions of the Fed and of France on gold did not help, as I understand it.
Boomer envy and boomer hate are obviously not the solutions.
But young people are facing generally harsher economic realities than we did — as in paying rent and buying houses plus higher college costs. Nor can they expect SS and Medicare in place when they retire. While they are supporting boomer retirees with their work today.
That’s not fair.
We can see the future in countries like Korea (lowest replacement rate 0.72) and China, where the young are mostly choosing not to marry and make families. In China there are youth movements called “Lying flat” and “Let it rot.”
Those countries are imploding demographically and their populations are collapsing.
Barring an AI future in which robots and computers do the work and all people benefit (one hopes), I don’t know what we will do.
The NYT screed hit on a lot of points that trigger debate, as I expected.
Just to round out the post – AesopSpouse and I were in a college production of the musical version, “Zorba!”
It’s a complicated story about love and hate and societies and individuals.
The music is great.
@Huxley,
For China, at least, it’s not so much that young adults are choosing not to marry, it’s that young men are having trouble finding brides thanks to China’s “one child policy “. If couples were only allowed one child, then most couples wanted a boy, since a son was traditionally expected to take care of his parents while a daughter was traditionally expected to take care of her in laws. Baby girls were abandoned outside or given to orphanages so their parents could try again for a son. As a result, the current generation of young men are searching for wives who aren’t there…because the baby girls were killed, or abandoned, or adopted out, etc.
This will come so will a reaction to it.
Encountered a young man with this “the Boomers took all the money, life is not fair attitude”. Told him I believe I could go back as a young engineer (my profession) and end up in same position I am now at 67 with hard work. His response “you boomers think hard work is the answer to everything”. “Not everything but it comes in pretty handy down here was my response”
Slackers want, doers do.
I think the politics of envy (“other people owe it to you”) plays better to many voters than the politics of “you live in the land of opportunity — go earn it yourself.” It’s easy to think of such people as lazy parasites, but then you see people who made fabulous wealth with apparently little effort, as if they won the lottery of life, and conclude “I deserve it too.”
My parents were teenagers during the Great Depression. They taught us frugality and self-sufficiency as we grew up. I think it was a good lesson, and to this day I am not comfortable taking any form of government assistance even though I paid into it. And the thought of expecting someone older or richer than I am to give me anything unearned is anathema. I hope I taught my daughters the same spirit.
Mark, I think you’re right.
I taught engineers up to about 2020.
They just wanted to graduate and get to work.
One of the absolute worst offenders in the “Die, Boomer” arena is Theodore Beal, who fancies himself a soopergenius and posts as Voxday/vox popoli. There are things upon which he and I agree and he is often insightful on certain topics, but on the issue of “Boomers” he is absolute monomaniacal. He must really hate his father. Regardless, the problem with anti-boomerism is the same one that affects all other generalized conclusions about humanity, such as all Jews are mercenary; all blacks are lazy; all whites are racist, and so on and so forth. One simply cannot paint with so broad a brush. While stereotyping serves a purpose and can be useful (such as avoiding all strange dogs or snakes) once one investigates further, the exceptions to the “rule” tend to emerge. Sometimes those exceptions prove the rule and other times, they upset it. For every careless, selfish “boomer” who deserves criticism, there are as many, if not more who, like me and my wifeydear who sacrificed to provide for children and later, grandchildren and in turn, have received much gratitude and affection for our past and continuing help. As we are told, from those to whom much has been given, much is expected. I personally have nothing but contempt for “boomers” who prioritized their personal status at the expense of their children’s welfare and especially, for those who squandered America’s wealth and status on the altar of globalism. I’m looking at you, open borders/tax-and-spend/welfare promoting democrats. And by the way, to all of those who would, like the jugeared dweeb “perfesser” Moyn seek to take what I have accumulated from me and distribute it to those to whom I owe nothing, I say, “Molon labe.”
Who mostly populates the No Kings rally’s? Boomers. Just casual commentary like Gutfeld points to all the left wing rallys being dominated by Boomers.
At a larger level the country I was born into was about 100 million people most of whom were born here. Now huge swaths of the country are foreign controlled zones, we have foreigners is congress who actively hate our country, and we’ve inexplicably allowed mass immigration of a cult that is massively against every Western value.
The blame for all of this is at the boomers on both sides of the isle. I don’t care about their share of wealth at all, it’s their wanton destruction of a country that worked well, so that no one else would enjoy what they grew up with.
The NYT piece is a perfect example of how disconnected some younger people are from reality.
I grew up poor. My dad was dirt poor. Nothing was handed to us. We worked, saved, and clawed our way up.
Meanwhile, I keep hearing that Boomers “stole” everything. Really? Try buying a house at 12% interest. Try saving for retirement when IRAs had strict limits and most jobs didn’t offer plans. Try getting through school when no one told you how to navigate anything.
Today’s “z-gen” thinks being smart means they’re owed something. But intelligence isn’t entitlement.
The formula hasn’t changed: work hard, marry well, live below your means, save, invest, skip the luxury car and the daily Starbucks.
If that sounds unfair, maybe the problem isn’t the older generation.
We went to a timeshare presentation in the late 90s… the pitch was we were not limited to the area but could trade our investment for other vacations. Um… no thank you, we don’t go on vacations. Couldn’t really afford them. Now, I’m spending $40k a year cruising various places (Viking is not cheap) and finding that is not enough vacation time… but because I followed the rules as I learned them, I can afford to go where I want. (Heading to Antarctica this winter)
This video by GEN may also be of interest. Is it all an info op? wouldn’t surprise me.
https://youtu.be/7Szfj5VC8_U?si=yZEVLW0wNbSGSSn9
One more thoughtful article on the generational divide.
https://markatwood.substack.com/p/the-indictment-is-being-workshopped
“This is part of an attack on private property”
I agree. The American Communist Cultural Revolution has been going on for about two generations.
However I can understand some of what drives the envy. Which is that the economic situation for our parents and grandparents was genuinely different from what this generation faces. My grandfather taught at a community college for most of his career, our grandmother stayed home and took care of four kids in a small three bedroom house, they even owned other property.
This generation? Both spouses work, can still be hard to own a home, often hard to afford more than two maybe three kids. Rudyard Lynch regularly discusses the challenges this generation faces compared to Boomers and Generation X. I came across a website that tells you how much income a household needs so one spouse does not have to work outside the home. For Louisiana (about average cost-of-living) it was a pretty high figure.
@Rick67: I came across a website that tells you how much income a household needs so one spouse does not have to work outside the home. For Louisiana (about average cost-of-living) it was a pretty high figure.
I’ve seen these too and they are generally cherry-picking assumptions to get that result.
Some of them show that the minimum income needed to live is HIGHER if both spouses work. If both spouses work, you need childcare, a second commute, and you pay higher income taxes. That accounts for a very large chunk of the second income. Quite aside from the quality of life, it does not always make financial sense for both spouses to work.
It does make financial sense for the government. If one spouse stays home and takes care of the children, the government gets nothing from that spouse’s labor. If that spouse works, the government collects taxes from that income and from the income of the people providing the childcare. The people providing childcare of course must have someone to look after their children, and so on.
Trump is a Boomer
AOC and Mamdani are Generation Communist
Easy choice
True communism has never bee.CRACK.
And another true believer finds out, from the party.
As an oldster, can we not just get on with killing deader than dead the Communist Regime in Cuba already? What the hell is taking so long? Get on with it, I don’t wish to be dead before it’s done.
@ Nate Winchester > “One more thoughtful article on the generational divide.”
Interesting take on “Gen X” — which I take to be my children, since I am a Boomer (1952).
Check out the sequel to that post:
https://markatwood.substack.com/p/then-we-skipped
I am still trying to decide if I agree or not, but the thoughts are interesting to ponder.
No one will know which scenario is correct until (much) later, but my bet is some of both will happen, possibly in equal measure.
Or the world will end.
Whatever.
This trend is going to become even more pronounced as Medicare and SS continue to consume ever-larger portions of the federal budget on the way to fiscal perdition.
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The ratio of Social Security disbursements to total personal income has since 1980 varied between 0.047 and 0.060. If I’m reading the CDC data correctly, the median birth cohort among those dying this year is that of 1944. The annual number of live births increased consistently from 1945 to 1957, and that’s going to affect the death cohort’s dimensions. At the same time, the 1957 cohort reached the age for full Social Security in 2024; the 19 subsequent birth cohorts were smaller.
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The ratio of Medicare spending to personal income has increased 3.0 fold since 1980. Medicaid spending, less driven by service consumption by the elderly, has increased 3.8 fold.
M J R on May 7, 2026 at 8:00 pm said:
“One item that is non-negotiable is my / our desire / determination to NOT be
dependent on my / our children or on “society” when I / we need the assistance.”
We 100% agree.
We help out our children as much as we can. Thankfully they don’t need much of anything, if at all.
The sibling they picked to be executor helps us with our finances. We hope to leave them a whole lot of …
It really depends on how much each of ours “end of life” care costs.
@ Nate Winchester > I just spent a couple of hours skimming through Mark Atwood’s “back issues.”
Thank you???? 😉
One post that I feel is particularly perceptive and important, and will probably generate a few nodding heads, is not based on any one subject in the news, but perhaps is tangential to the topic of this post, because of the behavioral psychology aspects.
Lots of good writing lurks inside the ellipses.
https://markatwood.substack.com/p/because-its-wrong
Atwood applies the lesson most obviously to engineering, medicine, aviation, and accounting (others could be added). Where the correlation of uncorrected errors and non-trivial consequences is not so strong, the errors accumulate longer and more invidiously as well as insidiously.
It was easy to see applications in the “soft” sciences and politics.
Some institutions these days are not just fighting the error-correctors, side-lining, and removing them, but are deliberately introducing errors and selecting for people who won’t point them out.
If they could even identify an error in the first place.
This never ends well.
Yeah @aesopfan, I find Mark Atwood interesting as well. Even if I don’t always agree with him I appreciate his approaches and arguments getting me to think. His article on MAID is bone chilling.
AesopFan, thank you very much for Error Correctors.
That’s really important.
All I have to say to ingrates is; if you want what we have, bust your ass and work for it like we did.
That is all.
Just to point out, ‘hoarded’ wealth is what is otherwise known as ‘savings and investment’. Prudent people heading to old age do that sort of thing.
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As for ‘hoarded’ power, there’s a shade of difference between various examples. If Trump holds out until his term concludes, he will have held public office for eight of the previous 60 years. Michael Bloomberg has done so for 12 of the last 60-odd years. Mitt Romney has done so for 10 of the last 50-odd years. Glitch McConnell has been on public sector payrolls for 53 of the last 59 years. Richard Durbin (a.k.a ‘Dick Dirtbag’) was so for 56 years, beginning in 1969. The AutoPen Administration’s figurehead has been so for 50 of the last 55 years.
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Here’s a deal: in regard to positions on conciliar bodies covering jurisdictions with populations over 1,000,000, positions as a general executive covering jurisdictions with populations over 50,000, and positions as a specialized executive in jurisdictions with populations over 100,000, make it the rule that you have to be between the ages of 39.0 and 72.0 on election day in order to be eligible. Also, make it a rule that all non-judicial positions are elected for four year terms and if, during a prospective term, you would reach a point where you’d held a position for 14 of the previous 16 years, you are debarred from standing for said term.
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In regard to the position of municipal court judge, make it the rule that you have to have been a member of the bar (active and in good standing) for six years before your can run or accept an appointment. In regard to a position as superior court judge, make it the rule you have to have been a member of the bar for 13 years (active and in good standing) ‘ere you can run or accept an appointment. For positions on an appellate court, make it the rule that you have to have served on a superior trial court for at least four years ‘ere you can run or accept an appointment. For positions on a court of last resort, make it a rule you have to have served on an appellate court for at least four years before you can run or accept an appointment. In re all judges make it a rule that you’re debarred from accepting an appointment or running for election, re-election, or retention past the calendar year you reach your 72d birthday and make it the rule that you’re compelled to retire on a standard date the calendar year you reach your 76th birthday and that retirement means you do not function as a judge in any setting anymore.
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Here’s a rule for academe: once you’ve reached a point where you are (1) eligible for Medicare, (2) eligible for full Social Security and (3) have contributed to TIAA-CREF for 35 years (FTE), you are an emeritus faculty member, no exceptions. As an emeritus faculty member, you are paid by the semester. limited in your teaching to filling in while a position is vacant or filling in for a faculty member on leave, and make use of office space only during semesters when you’re teaching (when you’re assigned to the space used by those faculty on short-term contracts).
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Here’s another suggestion: that faculty members be given the title of ‘instructor’ (on contracts of < six semesters), 'lecturer' (on contracts of 6-12 semesters), or 'professors' (given continuous tenure). The number of professors (FTE) would be limited to 38% of the faculty (FTE); one out, one in. Promotion to professor would be limited to those who had 12 years (FTE) of service at an institution and had reached the age of 45. The salary of a given faculty member would be a function of the department to which he was appointed, the number of preparations he was expected to undertake over the course of an academic year, the number of sections he was expected to teach over the coming year, and the number of students he was expected to enroll over the coming year; if he overshot or undershot the mark, he would receive increments or decrements the following year; his salary would not be a function of his faculty rank and there would be no hire-to-tenure deals. (Fringes would be about the same for all with faculty appointments).
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Faculty would be due terminal contracts if let go before retirement; they would generally be in the form of a lump sum which amounted to the discounted present value of x years of compensation, wherein 'x' would be equal to your years of service divided by four and the value of your annual compensation would be the mean of the previous six years for you multiplied by a fudge factor. As for the endowed chair, the income from the endowment finances your research or it is recycled. All contract renewals and all promotions would require the assent of the majority of the trustees; the trustees would be 5-19 in number and elected quadrennially by a postal ballot of the alumni registered to vote in the state where the institution is headquartered.
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Deal, Professor Moyn?
Short version:
Legalized theft—and oppression—on a massive level is virtuous…as long as the right people get shafted.
(Merely a riff on the better known “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”.)
Besides, it allows all those socialist governments to play “god”…
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As for Canada’s—and others’—MAID program, those oh-so-virtuous governments are
doingperpetrating it for the most bestest of reasons: to greatly ASSIST the individual (and family) and benefit society.Of course!