Gerontocracy in America
Samuel Moyn’s “Gerontocracy in America” argues that the US has become dominated by older generations. IF intern Anton Kui assesses how relevant the American example is for the UK.
The U.S. of Grey
“Social progress rests on death,” wrote philosopher Auguste Comte. The idea is that each generation that passes clears the stage for the next, and that this is how society moves forward. Samuel Moyn’s Gerontocracy in America is a book about what happens to society when generations choose to stay on stage.
For fifteen years, the United States has not elected a president under seventy. Its last two were the oldest in its history; its Supreme Court justices now sit for an average of twenty-six years, up from around fifteen in the 1970s. Moyn argues that over the past generation, the old have quietly captured wealth, housing, jobs, and politics in the US while the young are left to fight through the cost-of-living crisis. What can Britain learn from Moyn’s critics, and how can we ensure that we do not fall into the same gerontocratic trap?
How did the US become a Gerontocracy?
Following the development of modern healthcare, there was a massive reduction in infant mortality, along with the decline of many adult diseases. This combination is what Moyn calls the ‘great ageing’; populations grew older, and the older became more powerful as they became a larger share of the electorate, the workforce, and the owning class. Gerontocracy is a product of people living longer, and a system that rewards age with power at an institutional level.
Outside of the presidency, most government positions have no term limits. Ageing incumbents face no pressure to step down, and so the old stay in positions of power. In 1995, the Supreme Court barred certain states from introducing term limits on elected positions in Congress. The Senate is an institution built for the old to exercise power, from the Latin word senex, literally meaning “old man”. Today, the average age of the Senate is over 65, and the median age of the Supreme Court justices is 68.
This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, as the prevalence of ageing politicians only increases the abstention of young people from politics. Turnout amongst the young falls as descriptive representation does – when young people cannot identify with their government – further loosening their grip on power.
Wealth, work, and votes
Gerontocracy is not just about who holds office. It is about who holds the country’s wealth, assets, and opportunities. In 2019, under-40s made up 37% of the American population but held just 4.9% of its wealth; those 55 and over made up 37% of the population, but held 71.7%. While, of course, some of this is the natural course of the life-cycle, the extent of that gap is impressive. Back in 2011, the median senior citizen already had about forty-seven times the wealth of someone aged 18 to 34. The median American homebuyer was thirty in 1981, rising to fifty-three in 2022. With older owners refusing to downsize, they push prices up and push the young out of ownership.
The average age of a CEO has skyrocketed in the past decades, with older executives increasingly hoarding wealth and opportunities. The pay gap between over-55s and under-35s grew by 61% between 1979 and 2018 as the share of workers over 55 rose 88% over that same period. The old are saturating the labour market, making it much more difficult for the young to enter executive positions. Moyn points to the great wealth transfer set to occur in the coming years, most of it inherited by younger people, but only to refuel the gerontocratic system. An estimated $16 trillion in assets over the next decade and $45 trillion by 2045 is set to be transferred down, though much of it will be tax-free and be inherited by the children of those CEO’s that will likely grow older and do the same.
The most significant area, however, is the electorate. People over 65 are much more likely to be regular voters than younger cohorts, especially outside the most high-profile elections. Lower-profile elections, such as the primaries, have major impacts, with over 90% of seats in the current House of Representatives determined by them, and thus determined by the old. As Moyn puts it, “in an ageing society, the politicians are less of a problem than the voters”
What does Moyn suggest we do?
Moyn offers a wide range of policies, some more radical than others. Firstly, following the example of other countries, he suggests making voting easier and more habitual: declaring election day a national holiday, allowing voting from home, and even making participation mandatory with penalties for those who do not. These would raise youth turnout and ensure better representation in government. Though Moyn concedes that these would not do much to shift the underlying balance of power in a gerontocratic state.
For that, he focuses more on the institutions that support it. He calls for age limits on government office, but recognises how this could cut off high-functioning and productive workers. His middle ground is a nationwide mandatory retirement age paired with capacity testing in certain fields that would allow productive older workers to remain. As he points out, you cannot fly a commercial plane past 65, surely you should not be able to run a government past 70. Alongside this he proposes youth quotas in government, and more boldly, the abolition of the Senate, an institution he deems fundamentally gerontocratic.
His most contentious proposals aim to make democracy more representative. Moyn argues that the votes of the very old should be down-weighted, to reflect that many of them will not live to see the outcomes they are voting for. Instead, the young who turn out should have their votes count for more. While this puts into question the famous ‘one person, one vote’ rule, the electoral college in the US already undermines this idea, making this weighted system not so far-fetched. Additionally, Moyns would want to lower the voting age to sixteen, and more radically, along the same logic, eliminate the elderly vote past a certain age.
So what can Britain learn?
Britain is not like the US. The average age of an MP sits at around 48. While the House of Lords may be even more geriatric than the Senate, it is far less powerful. Where the parallels do lie is in the electorate and economics.
Young people are heavily disengaged in politics, with only 37% of 18-24 year-olds voting in the 2024 general election compared to 73% of those aged 65 and above. This undoubtedly skews politics, pushing those in charge to pursue policies that favour the old because that’s where the votes are. The triple lock remains untouched after every fiscal squeeze, despite Britain’s budget tightness.
Because Britain’s gerontocracy is electoral rather than institutional, policies to address it are electoral too. The recent decision to lower the voting age to 16 is a great start. Embedding a habit of voting while young people are still at school is crucial for sustaining democratic participation among younger generations. Making voting mandatory, as in Australia and Belgium, could further close that gap and force parties to campaign seriously for the youth vote. Moyn’s vote-weighting idea, while philosophically sound and provocative food-for-thought, is unlikely to be appealing to the British electorate, though its impact would greatly shift current political outcomes.
Additionally, Britain has the same issue when it comes to housing in the US, and the power that comes with it. Home ownership has collapsed for those under-35 over the past two decades in Britain, and only continues as supply fails to reach its targets. Older homeowners find little incentive to downsize, with much of that asset wealth transferred down, largely untaxed, all while young families are priced out.
A warning
Comte believed that progress depended on each generation clearing the stage for the next. Moyn’s book warns us that America has stopped doing so at an institutional level, leaving the costs to fall on the younger generations. Britain is not there yet. But on certain matters, such as who turns out to vote and who gets to own a home, that parallel is present. The lesson to learn from Gerontocracy in America is that a society that gives all its power to the most experienced generation takes away the opportunity from the next generation to gain any.