Old and in the way?

Imagine a world that allows you to live the autumn years of your life with dignity. Old age should be about life being made more pleasant with everything society has to offer. After all, everyone holds onto the hope that he or she will someday enjoy what they now offer to others. The old should not be haunted by the thought that others are waiting for them to die in order to come into an inheritance. Nor by the fear that once they are old and helpless they will be thrown aside to vanish from all thought. When socialism is built the elderly will not depend on the charity and the alms of the community.   The world’s over-65s will soon outnumber its under-5s for the first time in recorded history. Whatever our age, we all have an overriding interest in the establishment of Socialism. When you are young and fit you produce surplus value for your master. When you are old and infirm you are the subject of neglect and abuse. In the treatment of the elderly, capitalism must be the worst system ever devised. In a capitalist society, goods are produced to make a profit and workers are viewed primarily as economic units who can be exploited for their labour power. The elderly, having withdrawn from productive work are, therefore, at an economic disadvantage. Our profit system makes men and women grow old prematurely. Millions look with dread upon the day when, once they have grown old, they will be discarded. Millions of workers struggle through life in penury and want towards a bleak and barren old age, to finally find rest at last in the council care home or the morgue. It must be impressed upon the minds of workers that the living standards of a generation of people at or near retiring age are being sacrificed to increase the proportion of resources going into government investment going to businesses. The problem is that people accept capitalism and its logic and therefore see no alternative. 

From the cradle to the grave we are subjected. in one form or another, to the depredations and exploitation of the capitalist system.  Elderly workers are manipulated according to the fluctuating demands for labour power under capitalism. Thirty or forty years ago at a time of high unemployment, the elderly were encouraged to retire early and now the retirement age is being raised higher and higher. Capitalism is a wasteful and oppressive system for workers of all ages. It is capitalism which fosters the spurious divisions and encourages animosities between various age groups. While the younger generation struggle with benefits, pay, education and housing, the elderly encounter comparable problems, of low incomes, poor health, choosing between eating and heating, isolation and loneliness. Traditional societies valued older people as a store of knowledge and experience, but under capitalism, the elderly are seen as little more than unpaid child-minders for grandkids, and as a burden to be looked after as cheaply as possible.  When the elderly cannot work and continue to make profits for capitalism, they can go on to the human scrap heap. Who cares?

It is typical of capitalism, that as we reach old age we do not have a great deal to look forward to. A system whose purpose is profit can have no place for anyone unable to contribute towards this aim.  When workers decide to abolish the wages system and produce for human needs instead of profit, then hardship and insecurity in old age could become a memory of capitalism's barbaric past. In socialism, everyone would have the opportunity to contribute to the community for as long as they could. Their contributions would not have to be strictly rationed nor controlled and all would be able to share in the common produce. The creation of second-class cast-off workers known as pensioners would cease to be and in its place, we could have a fair share for all. The struggle for such a society is in our immediate practical interest.  Under capitalism, welfare has always been an issue. If capitalism is to be judged by what is done for the least fortunate section of the community – the aged and infirm – it will be judged and found wanting. This world possessed of vast resources should be free from the scourge of poverty. Money dominates our social life and our social practices and that can only produce inhumanity.