You Say You Want a Revolution…. Gail Heriot

Like many Americans, I receive a report each year from the Social Security Administration.  It tells me approximately how much money I will be getting in Social Security when I retire.    It’s always more than I thought it would be.  Purr. (I try not to look at the chart on the facing page that tells me how much money my employers and I have put in the system.  I’m afraid I might find less reason to be cheerful.)

It occurred to me as I read it that no more effective deterrent to revolution has ever been invented than the government-sponsored retirement program.  It’s hard to imagine even the most hardened of revolutionaries attempting to topple the government that is paying grandma her benefits on the first Thursday of each month.  If some group of wild-eyed revolutionaries did try, they would be beaten back by retirees armed with golf clubs and pocketbooks.  Jefferson (with his somewhat overblown rhetoric about the need to water the tree of liberty in blood every generation or so) might be disappointed.

I suppose that one can see it all as a kind of triumph of Hamilton.  Hamilton liked to remark that a national debt was a blessing–in part because it gave the creditor classes reason to care about the fledgling nation’s success.  Social Security puts all working people in the creditor classes.  We all have a stake in the nation’s stability now–even riff raff like me–at least as long as the money lacks any kind of portability.

Or maybe I just feel this way because I’m getting old ….