Did you live a self-reliant, constructive life? Did you play by the rules, work hard, raise your kids to be productive members of society, save up, and arrive in seniority well-provisioned for your well-earned golden years?
Sucker!
If you simply reverse the direction of each of the Ten Commandments, you arrive at the leftist version. Among these is the Marxist tenet of weaponized envy — Thou shalt covet — and its corollary, Thou shalt steal.
Socialist-communists are always on the lookout for ways to play the many against the few so they can pillage the minority, enriching themselves while throwing crumbs to their useful-idiot foot soldiers. And right now, they are taking aim at senior citizens who saved their pennies so they might enjoy their retirements.
An opinion-setting column appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday. Entitled “Older Americans Are Hoarding America’s Potential,” it was penned by Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale who has a book coming out called Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It (emphasis added, because that’s the scary part).
In his column, Moyn makes perfunctory efforts to calm readers’ fears about his intentions. “‘Ageism’ identifies an enduring phenomenon: the mistreatment of older people for no reason other than being older,” he soothes. “Americans in middle age and beyond are routinely passed over for opportunities because of the irrelevant fact of a number on paper or how they act and look after getting older.”
And yet, “In today’s world, the unfair discrimination they cite coexists with a different kind of unfairness: a gerontocratic society in which the old control ever more power and wealth, leading to overrepresentation in political life and unequal power in social life.”
That’s right: It’s unfair to keep what you earned and to exercise your civic duty to vote and be engaged.
Naturally, that leads Moyn to conclude: “It is not ageist to ask whether older people should be required to give more to younger Americans and national priorities — it is critical to the future of our democracy and society. America needs to confront gerontocracy before the system collapses under the weight of its inequality and injustice.”
No, it’s not “ageist” to ask that — it’s Marxist.
“Older Americans deserve a say over the future even when they might not live to see it,” Moyn placates, before ratcheting up his rhetoric: “But they do not deserve the stranglehold over it they currently enjoy through overrepresentation in elections, which produces too many regressive policies and too many seniors in the highest offices.”
A second column, in the May 2026 issue of The Atlantic, is an even more direct attack. It’s titled “An Oligarchy of Old People.” Recall that socialist stars AOC and Bernie Sanders just completed their so-called Fighting Oligarchy Tour, and author Idrees Kahloon could not make it much clearer that “Old People” are the enemy. The opening salvo is an ugly comparison of elderly people who lived successful lives to dictators: “Gerontocracy has always thrived in undemocratic places—Communist people’s republics, Gulf monarchies—where only death could pry power from the ruling elders.” Well, then, I guess we know where Kahloon stands on the subject.
Kahloon points out that high-level politicians and the most engaged voters tend to be over 50. This seems only natural to me, and generally desirable, as leaders ought to have some life experience and wisdom.
But Moyn gives away the game when he complains that these powerful old people have the wrong political preferences:
Some of the excessive power that the aging have amassed harms society, as they enjoy advantages to the detriment of others. That power hurts a large number of elderly Americans themselves. Crucial priorities for the future, like creativity and dynamism, environmental remediation, immigration policies and tax fairness also suffer under gerontocracy. Older Americans favor restrictions on immigration most, even when they need immigrant caregivers most. Likewise, there is a correlation between age and resistance to policies to halt the overheating of the planet or raise funds for education and other civic purposes.
Both authors lay on the envy-mongering. Here's Kahloon:
Although political gerontocracy has operated overtly, the rising economic power of the elderly has escaped much notice. Over the past 40 or so years, American wealth has grown ever more concentrated among the oldest generations. In 1989, Americans over age 55 held 56 percent of it; today they hold 74 percent. During that same period, the share of wealth held by Americans under 40 has shrunk by nearly half, from 12 to 6.6 percent. The color of money is now gray.
Both authors bemoan the fact that 55-and-up-year-olds own the most expensive real estate and hold the most powerful jobs. Except for the ones who don’t, who are thus also harmed by the greedy successful elderly hoarding their “accumulated housing, jobs and wealth,” as Moyn describes it. So much for passing down one’s legacy to one’s children or favorite charities, I suppose. Whatever — the elderly have-nots are simply more bodies to add to the push to loot the elderly haves.
Related: Imagine If the Left Took a Break From Marinating in Rage-Hate
The lefties are still in the build-up-the-narrative phase of this eat-the-(old)-rich campaign, during which they traditionally rabble rouse enough people to build pressure for policy changes. But they are already laying out the blueprint for how to rob the comfortably retired of their influence, possessions, and autonomy.
Moyn, who wrote a whole book on the subject, sketches it out:
It is not ageist, either, to begin to save our democracy from gerontocracy. Proposals range from making it easier to cast a ballot — since current requirements routinely hurt younger voters who move around a lot — to institutionalizing mandatory voting. A bigger fix might lower the voting age.
It is not ageist, finally, to impose policies to transfer jobs, houses and wealth down the generational chain. There are ways of doing so indirectly, by reversing the effects of the tax revolts that have uncoincidentally marked America’s gerontocratic age, ever since California’s Proposition 13 passed in 1978.
There are also direct ways of recognizing that age affects opportunity and resources. The most obvious is to reinstitute mandatory retirement in those employment sectors (especially white-collar work) where generational renewal has been obstructed for years.
In housing, besides circumventing the disproportionately high elder participation in town meetings where land-use decisions are made, I advocate a progressive tax on older homeowners to incentivize them to downsize rather than retain. The longer you stay, the more you should have to pay. The funds could allow for new construction and other projects of intergenerational justice, especially educational ones that prioritize unleashing our young people into the creative prime of life.
You hear that, old people? Get the hell out of the way! Give the mob your jobs, homes, and savings! Fear not: They will take care of you in the nice institutions they will put you in.
Until they decide you are in the way again.
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