David:
Your argument here is the perfect illustration of something I wrote a couple of days ago, about conservatives' (and libertarians) envisioning the family as the `default nurturant' institution of the social order. Such an argument would have been more persuasive before and during the days of competitive capitalism, when the economy was rooted in the family. But today, it strikes me as almost mystical and nostaglic. As families (or more accurately, the individuals who are the constituent members of a family) have moved from functioning as a unit of production to functioning as a (fragmented) unit of consumption, they have lost the last vestige of control over their economic standing--i.e., the decision about whether they get a paycheck is largely in the hands of a corporation whose power and reach in the marketplace completely dwarfs their own. Under these circumstances, I don't think we have any choice but to socialize the risk of growing old.
And no, quite apart from the revelation that Martin Feldstein cooked the data, I wouldn't agree either that social security reduces savings. Implicit in your argument is the assumption that anything public necessarily subtracts from anything private. I would suggest instead that there is a fixed pool of investment, in which at this point at least, public and private are mutually interdependent.
Joel Blau
dshemano wrote:
Joel Blau writes:
"No, to the contrary, socializing the cost of paying for elderly reduces resentment of the burden they may constitute. Besides, your position assumes that all children can take of all parents, which is economically speaking is just not true. If you are saying that those who can't should then be covered by means-tested programs, then your position is internally inconsistent, because you are then favoring other people caring just for the poor. Should they alone suffer from a deleterious effect on family relations?"
I am willing to agree that socializing the cost reduces the resentment, but isn't that simply another way of saying people prefer the illusion they are getting a free lunch? However, basing public policy on hiding costs can be problematic and have unintended consequences, right? For instance, would you agree that the existence of social security has a very negative effect on the savings rate (i.e. because people expect a government pension, they save less for their retirement than they would in the absence of social security)?
I don't assume all children can take of their parents. My position is that you should take care of my parents only if I cannot, and we should not create disincentives to me taking care of my patients (and preparing for my own retirement).
David Shemano
