The mask of the State slips, for a moment
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 19 years ago, in 2005, on the World Wide Web.
Treasury Secretary Snow came to Portland a couple of weeks ago to hawk the Bush administration’s Social Security plan (i.e., inflicting another goddamn government-controlled account on you and calling it freedom
); Captain Arbyte attended and stuck him with a tough question that puts the lie to the ownership society
rhetoric.. Good show; but it turns out that before he even got the chance to ask, Snow had already let the mask of the State slip, for just a moment, before hurriedly putting it back in place (emphasis mine):
The fourth question asked about potential changes to existing retirement accounts. Snow said that Social Security was never intended to be a person’s only source of retirement income, and that FDR was clear about this when the program was enacted. Snow praised Health Savings Accounts in particular as a savings vehicle. He said that the young are notoriously poor savers, and that it’s an advantage of the President’s system that it forces people to save. Foot in mouth, he quickly rephrased it as an opportunity. (Thanks Steve; I missed the rephrasing.) He finished by saying that he’s in favor of savings — well, at least he’s clearly not a Keynesian.
But, of course, that’s what the Bush plan is, no matter how lovely the mask and no matter how polite the language: it is a plan for forcing people to save for their retirement against their will. And, while we’re at it, so is Social Security: whether you think you have a better use for your money or not, whether you think you can get a better rate of return from your local bank or not, whether you would feel more secure not being dependent on U.S. government entitlements for your retirement income or not, you will be forced to turn the money over to the government’s approved uses, and you will be forced to do so under any Yet Another Damn Account plan that Bush and his gang come up with. Don’t believe me? Try not paying your Social Security tax and see what happens to you.
In the world of State bureau-speak, the State offers opportunities
, not threats, and opportunities do not exist until the State creates them. In Snow’s world there are apparently no brokers, no banks, and no mason jars, so young people do not have an opportunity
to save unless the government issues an edict forcing them to do it. Just like No Child Left Behind gives schools an opportunity
to hire more credentialed teachers and increase standardized testing. Just like jail gives potheads an opportunity
to reconsider their dissolute life. Just like the draft gave our boys an opportunity
to serve their country. Of course, this is all the polite way of saying that no matter what individual people who know about their own lives better than you do decided the best course of action to be, given their present circumstances and limited resources, you will need to comply with what the government tells you is best and if you do not comply some dude with a gun or a billy-club will come to your house and make you do it, or take you to jail for not doing it, or both. As Ludwig von Mises said:
It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action…. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
–Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, ch. XXVII, p. 719
Now, let me be clear. The fact that an edict is backed by the threat of force is not a decisive argument against it. There is nothing wrong with using force to stop murder, or slavery, or robbery, or rape. But the point here is that if you are going to go around in favor of this or that government program you had better be clear about what that entails and it had better be something that it’s worth using force to achieve.
So, now, remind me. Why should I be forced to save for my own retirement?
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Why should you be forced to save for your own retirement?
Well, strictly speaking, you’re not. You’re currently forced to support other people in their retirements, with a promise that someday you’ll be supported in your old age. This used to be considered a public good, since it a) took some of the burden of old-folk upkeep off the beleaguered children, and b) kept old folks off the streets and out of the closets with the ropes around their no-longer-burdensome necks.
If we’re talking about actually forcing people to save for their retirements, I’d say I’ve got pretty mixed feelings about that. If you can save but you don’t, I’d say that’s fine, so long as you promise not to drag your kids down as they’re trying to feed and educate your grandchildren, and so long as you don’t come around looking for the public dole in your old age.
So long as you keep it your business, in other words, I’d say it’s your business.
Some state governments currently force their employees to do save for retirement, btw. As a state employee I’ve frequently been angered by how little choice I have in how that money gets invested, but on the whole I think it’s probably a good idea. Most people, left to themselves, will not save adequately for retirement. Since someday these people will be retired and I will still be living among them, it’s in my interest to see that they’ve saved enough that they don’t have to come knocking on my door.
Nanny statism at its best, rg.
amy:
Well, this depends on what kind of work the “strictly speaking” is supposed to do.
If you’re going by the rhetoric behind Social Security and the way that Social Security benefits work, then the system is clearly supposed to be a matter of “paying in,” in order to cash out eventually at your own retirement.
You could point out that this is just an accounting fiction, that in fact the money you put in instantly goes out to current retirees. True, but if you’re going to take that line you may as well say that the notion you pay anything at all into the “Social Security system” is a big accounting fiction; in fact your money goes straight into the government general fund and is appropriated from year to year as Congress sees fit. Of course, then the question becomes why one should be forced to turn money over to Congress against her will for alleged benefits, sight-unseen, only a few of which at most might be delivered to her personally, some day or another.
If you’re willing to grant the accounting fiction on the basis of how Social Security is operated — that is, how revenues are collected and how benefits are disbursed — then it does indeed look a lot more like forced savings allegedly for your own retirement, rather than forced savings for other people’s retirement. That’s why, for example, everyone receives benefits and not just the indigent; it’s also why the level of benefits received is directly proportional to the amount you (or your spouse, depending on financial arrangements) “paid in” to the system before retirement.
Now, if you think that I ought to be forced to pay in to an old-age welfare system so that other people can get by, I disagree, but it’s a separate argument for this one. The important fact to realize is that seriously implementing an old-age welfare program rather than a forced savings program would require a substantially different program — e.g., lifting caps on the amount of income taxable under FICA, decoupling benefits from the taxes “paid in,” and probably means-testing benefits so as to provide a safety net for retirees rather than an entitlement for anyone regardless of how much they’ve socked away for retirement.
This is all well and good, but (1) it’s not actually the rationale behind the current implementation of Social Security (and certainly not the rationale behind any of Mr. Bush’s nebulous Yet Another Damn Account plans); and (2) while I agree that solidarity and mutual aid are valuable public goods, I don’t agree that “G is a public good” is a persuasive reason for thinking “People ought to be forced to financially support G.” There are lots of public goods in the world, from light-houses to pleasant-smelling bakeries to poetry to criminal justice. Some may be plausible candidates for forced funding; but others clearly are not. The question is whether, for any individual person, it’s worth using violence against her to take her money for the program. I’ve yet to hear a convincing case that this is true for old-age financial security. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be any; it does mean that whatever there is should be voluntarily rather than coercively funded.
Well, it’s clear enough that extracting tax funds to live on the dole in your old age isn’t justifiable if forced savings aren’t. But I’m not sure what you mean by promising . If you decide to live like the grasshopper until you retire and then you come around asking your kids for support, then your kids can choose to say either yes or no; whatever they say, it’s a matter of their choice about how to dispose of their own money, not giving up money to extortion (I assume that you wouldn’t be showing up at their door with a shotgun and an invoice). Depending on some pretty variable circumstances, asking your salaried kids for financial help after you’ve retired may be justifiable or excusable or simply parasitic, but whatever it is it’s not clear why the a government official’s decision whether or not to cuff me, jail me, beat me, and/or shoot me should be dependent on whether or not I promise not to be non-violently avaricious in my old age.
Well, pension plans for state employees are not exactly the products of the free market, but they are not “forced savings” in the sense that Social Security is or Mr. Bush’s YADA plans would be. There’s an easy enough way to opt out of contributing to them: don’t work for the state government. Different employers offer different benefits packages, and sometimes the options that those benefit packages offer are narrower than they really ought to be, but that’s an issue of conditions of employment rather than an issue of government force.