File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-19.123, message 16


Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 22:34:00 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: M-I: The Welfare State & Demographics


[Thought you might find this interesting in light of a current thread:]

Scot A. Park  park-AT-en.com (Scot A. Park) of the HEALTHRE
discussion group writes: "...I uncovered the following demographics I thought
might be of some interest to this group:"
o  6,000 Americans turn 65 every  day and 43% of them will spend
       some time in senior housing/care facilities
o  More than 2/3's of the people in the history of the world who
      have ever reached 65 are alive today
o  Persons 85 and older will grow from 3 million at present to 19
      million by the year 2050

[Which provides context for this interesting argument:]

 Professor Steve Fuller of  Dept of Sociology Univ of Durham
-United Kingdom- (Steve.Fuller-AT-durham.ac.uk) of the Science and Technology
Studies group: "...One response to the anticipated abundance of ailing
oldsters is not to fund medical research to improve the quality of ageing,
but to
reacquaint people with the old idea of dying gracefully. It's nice to imagine
lots of healthy oldsters keeping their jobs forever. But I'm not sure I'd
want to invest taxpayers' money on this ideal, until we've sorted out our
attitudes toward employment and welfare more generally, and especially for
younger people."

[I'm sure Fuller is just trying to prompt debate - but you do get an idea
of the sort of challenge capitalism is facing here, don't you?

Comments?

I'm off tomorrow.  See you all soon.

Best wishes,
Rob.]




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