A Social Security Theodicy

I picked up a Money magazine today because I forgot a book for the bus. It featured some scary black and white pictures of baby boomers and another scare story on social security.

There are a certain number of things in life that exist only because we believe in them. God and the Tooth Fairy don't work that way. No matter how hard I believe, I'm not going to be able to wish them into existence. But other things exist and have meaning because we believe. For example, love. Another example would be a promise. Still another example is social security. Yes, the dollars we all put in matter. But what really matters is that we believe that this is a promise and that our society's (social) promise means something (security for older and disabled Americans).

And lest I open myself up to charges of bleeding heart liberalism [I suppose mentioning love and social security in the same blog is hopelessly muddle-headed], I'll point out that every economy is founded on shared beliefs. We all believe that little green pieces of paper mean something. Many of us have an irrational belief that stocks will go up by 10% in perpetuity. If we stopped assigning meaning to the green pieces of paper, the economy wouldn't work.

So, the real question confronting us on social security is who are we? Do we make and keep promises? Do we work to create a society? Do we care about people beyond our kin group and beyond the people who look and act just like us?

Alternatively, maybe we want a society where if you're born poor and work hard all your life, we say too bad--keep working until you drop for your sins of being poor or ignorant or not saving. What privatizing social security really says it that we are not responsible for each other.

If we come to believe that we will have neither a society nor security.