I was just trying to point out, that the definition of not working is problematic. It includes pensioners and it excludes a lot of people, who I would call rich, like say Fortune 500 CEOs. It therefore needs to be enough capital to allow a passive income well above global average. A good number would imho be something like USD 1,000,000 to be a proper capitalist. And yes a lot of US Americans are rich.
US American pensioners lowest possible social security payment is higher then the median Chinese wage. Cry me a river.
The CEO argument collapses under the smallest scrutiny. Are we seriously suggesting Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, or Mark Zuckerberg perform labor? Their employees do. The engineers, the warehouse workers, the content moderators, they all generate the value. The CEO class performs ownership, and the ideological justification for their outsized returns is supposed to be risk. But when that risk materializes it gets offloaded onto workers through layoffs, wage cuts, and benefit reductions. They privatize the upside and socialize the downside onto the very people generating the value. That’s risk transfer which is exactly the exploitative relationship the original definition was describing.
The Social Security vs Chinese wages comparison is purchasing power theater. You’re comparing raw dollar amounts across completely different cost of living contexts without PPP adjustment, while ignoring that Chinese wages have been rising rapidly and the social policies that significantly reduce the cost of living for Chinese citizens. And even more absurd is the fact that Social Security payments in many cases, such as minimum payments, can place Americans below the poverty line. Most importantly though, it’s entirely beside the point. American elderly poverty rising in the context of American costs is a domestic policy failure. ‘Someone somewhere has it worse’ has never been a coherent rebuttal to a structural critique. It’s a deflection.
And wealthy pensioners have completely different voting incentives than struggling retirees. Conflating the two obscures a deliberate class dynamic. The generation now calling younger people lazy came of age with defined benefit pensions, strong union density, affordable higher education, and accessible housing. They built their security on a social contract that existed because previous generations fought and died for it then systematically voted to dismantle every piece of it once they’d extracted what they needed. ‘Fuck you, got mine’ basically, which is exactly how modern CEOs operate, amassing their wealth, laying off employees, stock buybacks, corporate bonuses, and abandoning ship on a golden parachute eventually.
Housing is the clearest mechanism. Homeowner retirement security is often directly financed by artificial scarcity. They vote against density, development, and tenant protections because their nest egg depends on keeping supply constrained. Their comfort is structurally contingent on younger generations being priced out.
Then they attribute their own material advantages to hard work and personal virtue, and younger generations’ struggles to laziness and poor choices. That’s just ideological cover for a clear material interest as we continue to be more productive than previous generations. We’re just too tired and burnt out to put on the theater anymore and call out the problems with the system that the older generations benefit from or are too much of cowards to admit. The meritocracy myth in its most cynical form, deployed by people who benefited from collective infrastructure and then pulled up the ladder. This is why the older demographic skews Republican and MASSIVELY so. It’s not nostalgia or confusion. It’s class interest expressed through the ballot box, dressed up as culture war.
I was just trying to point out, that the definition of not working is problematic. It includes pensioners and it excludes a lot of people, who I would call rich, like say Fortune 500 CEOs. It therefore needs to be enough capital to allow a passive income well above global average. A good number would imho be something like USD 1,000,000 to be a proper capitalist. And yes a lot of US Americans are rich.
US American pensioners lowest possible social security payment is higher then the median Chinese wage. Cry me a river.
I stand by my distinction.
The CEO argument collapses under the smallest scrutiny. Are we seriously suggesting Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, or Mark Zuckerberg perform labor? Their employees do. The engineers, the warehouse workers, the content moderators, they all generate the value. The CEO class performs ownership, and the ideological justification for their outsized returns is supposed to be risk. But when that risk materializes it gets offloaded onto workers through layoffs, wage cuts, and benefit reductions. They privatize the upside and socialize the downside onto the very people generating the value. That’s risk transfer which is exactly the exploitative relationship the original definition was describing.
The Social Security vs Chinese wages comparison is purchasing power theater. You’re comparing raw dollar amounts across completely different cost of living contexts without PPP adjustment, while ignoring that Chinese wages have been rising rapidly and the social policies that significantly reduce the cost of living for Chinese citizens. And even more absurd is the fact that Social Security payments in many cases, such as minimum payments, can place Americans below the poverty line. Most importantly though, it’s entirely beside the point. American elderly poverty rising in the context of American costs is a domestic policy failure. ‘Someone somewhere has it worse’ has never been a coherent rebuttal to a structural critique. It’s a deflection.
And wealthy pensioners have completely different voting incentives than struggling retirees. Conflating the two obscures a deliberate class dynamic. The generation now calling younger people lazy came of age with defined benefit pensions, strong union density, affordable higher education, and accessible housing. They built their security on a social contract that existed because previous generations fought and died for it then systematically voted to dismantle every piece of it once they’d extracted what they needed. ‘Fuck you, got mine’ basically, which is exactly how modern CEOs operate, amassing their wealth, laying off employees, stock buybacks, corporate bonuses, and abandoning ship on a golden parachute eventually.
Housing is the clearest mechanism. Homeowner retirement security is often directly financed by artificial scarcity. They vote against density, development, and tenant protections because their nest egg depends on keeping supply constrained. Their comfort is structurally contingent on younger generations being priced out.
Then they attribute their own material advantages to hard work and personal virtue, and younger generations’ struggles to laziness and poor choices. That’s just ideological cover for a clear material interest as we continue to be more productive than previous generations. We’re just too tired and burnt out to put on the theater anymore and call out the problems with the system that the older generations benefit from or are too much of cowards to admit. The meritocracy myth in its most cynical form, deployed by people who benefited from collective infrastructure and then pulled up the ladder. This is why the older demographic skews Republican and MASSIVELY so. It’s not nostalgia or confusion. It’s class interest expressed through the ballot box, dressed up as culture war.