The Death of “Retirement”
It would please me greatly to see the current experiment with retirement come to an end. I do not believe we can look back and say that it has been good for people to have adopted an entitled view of retirement. It may have been one generation’s great accomplishment but it has been to the detriment of those that followed.
How to care for and economically sustain those that are mentally or physically beyond their working years is still an social, ethical and economic issue that every society will need to understand and solve for. What we have adopted is more of an unrealistic expectation that we are entitled to live a life of leisure upon the magic age of 65. That philosophy has proved to be unsustainable for the majority and yet we continue operating with that as our guiding light towards the future.
Unfortunately, I do not see the actual “death of retirement” coming any time soon. We simply have not returned back from our momentary branch in history back to the more normative ways humans have taken care of those that are beyond their productive years. In short, we do not have a viable replacement because our social and economic systems aren’t there.
The retirement industry is too big of an economic business to shift. Over $32 trillion sits in retirement accounts accumulated over the last 2 to 3 decades. That is quite a monster to bring down or have people be willing to give it up that easily. There is plenty of money to be made off the idea of entitled retirement.
Larger than that, we do not have the social structures in place to resume a more normative version of retirement. Aside from the economics, families are not set up for to care well for one another in our current world. As people have lived longer, their need for extended care and skilled care has risen exponentially. This requires much of a family and much of society. After that, it cannot be assumed that education and corporations will step in to assume the economic and care role.
We could place it all in the government’s hands. Much of it already rests there. This simply creates compounding issues for tax payers, care providers, and the quality of state facilities does not seem that appealing.
Lastly, the religious sphere has almost abandoned this aspect of religious ethics along with the rest of America. When individualism and consumerism take root, there is not much room for others and care giving.
Death will come for this version of retirement sooner rather than later. My hope is that it is because we have changed course and altered our projected destination. That vision of the future is hopeful and brings me great joy for it will be a sign of human flourishing in new and dynamic ways. If it is not us that puts it to death, it will be the extreme failure and economic troubles that awaits us in a few decades that will cause us to wake up and realize we had a problem all along.