14 July, 2010
Ye horny-handed tons of soil
I was listening to an interesting conflict of perspectives on the splendidly relaxed IPM programme on the steam wireless the other morning. A bin man, increasingly overwhelmed by his strenuous job and feeling knackered at 45, is horrified at the prospect of a rising retirement age, while an academic, revelling in her work at at a sprightly 72 is indignant at the idea that she should step down at all.
Which of course is a fair point. People's circumstances, needs and capabilities differ. Though I'm not sure that the application of the convoy principle, as demanded by some on the Left, is either appropriate or indeed feasible. You could take it to silly extremes: professional footballers and pole dancers are usually pretty well finished by their mid thirties, say. We can't realistically use that to justify setting the general retirement age to 35. What our bin man needs is a less strenuous job in his later years. If society can offer resources to facilitate that transfer, then perhaps that is something we might usefully and feasibly aim for.
When the state retirement pension was introduced, it was a measure that could be funded out of Governmental small change, so few would be the takers. Even when I was a child in the 1950s, it was still very much the going rate that a man would retire at 65, and draw his state and possibly occupational pensions for 3 to 5 years before popping his clogs. Earlier deaths were common: the news that some relative, a second uncle thrice-removed perhaps, or some neighbour or family friend had snuffed it in their mid 50s following what today would have been considered a relatively minor illness was so quotidian an occurrence as to evoke little more than a ritual shrug of regret.
The staggering post-war improvement in longevity, brought about one assumes largely as a result of the combination of medical and scientific advances, improved public health measures and improved nutrition, is a development which has taken us all by surprise. About five years or so ago a reader wrote to The Times asking what was the age beyond which the obituaries editor thought it unnecessary to specify the cause of death of the deceased notable, simply assuming "death due to old age". The accepted threshold was apparently 80!
It's no use blaming us evil baby-boomers for this situation, although I agree we could have contributed a few more kids to the future than we did. We are as grateful as everybody else for this benison of extra years, but we're not living longer deliberately as part of some kind of evil plot to spite subsequent generations. Neither party-political nor intergenerational mudslinging is going to help us make the necessary adaptation to our (rather welcome) new situation.
Now I expect you're thinking, apart from cracking the occasional appalling joke, this Greenwood feller normally posts about race relations and immigration. So where's the hook, and where does the spoonerized title above fit in? Well here's a link for you on dear old CiF. Apart from the party-political bleating and blame-mongering, what strikes me most about this thread is the unexpected rehabilitation of the "labourer". The Righteous agonize copiously in their concern for the plight of the labouring classes, those who like the bin man described above already struggle to keep up with their physically strenuous work as they get older. The labouring classes, eh? The horny-handed sons of toil? Just a minute. Aren't these people the selfsame White Working Class who you so readily write off as benefit-sucking criminal chavscum living off the backs of hard-working immigrants in other threads? All of a sudden they're your favorite pets, are they?
Hypocrites.
Which of course is a fair point. People's circumstances, needs and capabilities differ. Though I'm not sure that the application of the convoy principle, as demanded by some on the Left, is either appropriate or indeed feasible. You could take it to silly extremes: professional footballers and pole dancers are usually pretty well finished by their mid thirties, say. We can't realistically use that to justify setting the general retirement age to 35. What our bin man needs is a less strenuous job in his later years. If society can offer resources to facilitate that transfer, then perhaps that is something we might usefully and feasibly aim for.
When the state retirement pension was introduced, it was a measure that could be funded out of Governmental small change, so few would be the takers. Even when I was a child in the 1950s, it was still very much the going rate that a man would retire at 65, and draw his state and possibly occupational pensions for 3 to 5 years before popping his clogs. Earlier deaths were common: the news that some relative, a second uncle thrice-removed perhaps, or some neighbour or family friend had snuffed it in their mid 50s following what today would have been considered a relatively minor illness was so quotidian an occurrence as to evoke little more than a ritual shrug of regret.
The staggering post-war improvement in longevity, brought about one assumes largely as a result of the combination of medical and scientific advances, improved public health measures and improved nutrition, is a development which has taken us all by surprise. About five years or so ago a reader wrote to The Times asking what was the age beyond which the obituaries editor thought it unnecessary to specify the cause of death of the deceased notable, simply assuming "death due to old age". The accepted threshold was apparently 80!
It's no use blaming us evil baby-boomers for this situation, although I agree we could have contributed a few more kids to the future than we did. We are as grateful as everybody else for this benison of extra years, but we're not living longer deliberately as part of some kind of evil plot to spite subsequent generations. Neither party-political nor intergenerational mudslinging is going to help us make the necessary adaptation to our (rather welcome) new situation.
Now I expect you're thinking, apart from cracking the occasional appalling joke, this Greenwood feller normally posts about race relations and immigration. So where's the hook, and where does the spoonerized title above fit in? Well here's a link for you on dear old CiF. Apart from the party-political bleating and blame-mongering, what strikes me most about this thread is the unexpected rehabilitation of the "labourer". The Righteous agonize copiously in their concern for the plight of the labouring classes, those who like the bin man described above already struggle to keep up with their physically strenuous work as they get older. The labouring classes, eh? The horny-handed sons of toil? Just a minute. Aren't these people the selfsame White Working Class who you so readily write off as benefit-sucking criminal chavscum living off the backs of hard-working immigrants in other threads? All of a sudden they're your favorite pets, are they?
Hypocrites.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 12:30 
