# Pros and cons of raising the retirement age

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 5, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587 "2010-07-05T04:21:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 53

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**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/53 "2010-07-10T18:51:51Z")

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> [@Rand\_Rover](#):
>
> Of course you do. You are a violent person, and you make it worse by lacking the courage of your convictions. You aren’t man enough to come take my stuff yourself, so you enlist the government to do it for you.

Of course we do. That is the purpose of government; to protect the weak from the strong. You are stronger than I am, by virtue of your wealth; I balance that by collectivising with other poor people to overcome your advantage. Of course, you find that annoying, because you believe the natural order is for the wealthy to exploit the poor, but social systems always find a way to equalize an imbalance of power. The pendulum swings back and forth, and some times the poor exploit the rich, but the natural rhythm of economics soon corrects that, always seeking that balance between the social classes.

The natural order is redistribution of energy to achieve entropy. If wealth is a form of stored energy, nature abhors that imbalance, and seeks to redistribute it. You can fight nature, but you can’t win.

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