Jean-Luc Melenchon, the hard-left French presidential hopeful, will pledge to raise the minimum wage and restore the country’s retirement age to 60 when he launches his 2027 election programme on Saturday.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the hard-left French presidential hopeful, will pledge to raise the minimum wage and restore the country’s retirement age to 60 when he launches his 2027 election programme on Saturday.
But wait, do retirees use up more natural resources than working 60 year-olds or less? Working people need all the resources retirees need plus resources needed to perform work. They’d get paid more than a pension too which means they’d get to consume more on top of their work-related consumption. And their work would transform more natural resources into commodities. ☠️
You are right that they use less resources and cause less damage if they don’t work, at least as long as our economical system does not internalize external costs and does not discourage using non-regenerating resources. From that point of view it’s probably better they do nothing worse than being retired. In a better system they would do something beneficial.
I just wanted to oppose the notion that they unlocked the “prosperity” achievement (i.e. we now have prosperity forever thanks to them) through hard work and have deserved to retire at 60.
No such notion with me! They’re not special, just people who worked and got old, workers, same as us. They came up with some productivity enhancing tech, through work, as does every generation. So do we. 😊
The excess income is often used to keep getting to said job or spent on raising the next generation. Any reminder typically goes into a retirement savings, if your in the upper middle class anyway.
Retirees often own their homes instead of paying mortgages or rent as well.