One strange theme that keeps cropping up in Republican circles is the idea that America cannot function as a Scandinavian social democracy because, unlike them, we have all these non-white people. It seems like a simple non-sequitur to me. I simply cannot find the thread of logic that I am supposed to follow. For example, explain to me why race is injected into Ross Douthat’s analysis:
Historically, the most successful welfare states (think Scandinavia) have depended on ethnic solidarity to sustain their tax-and-transfer programs. But the working-age America of the future will be far more diverse than the retired cohort it’s laboring to support. Asking a population that’s increasingly brown and beige to accept punishing tax rates while white seniors receive roughly $3 in Medicare benefits for every dollar they paid in (the projected ratio in the 2030s) promises to polarize the country along racial as well as generational lines.
Now, I have real doubts about all of the numbers Douthat throws out in his column, but that isn’t what concerns me here. Let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that he’s correct in asserting that the median income for a family of four is $94,900 and that their tax burden is set to increase 10% by 2035. If they are going to be getting soaked in taxes while the elderly collect far more in entitlements than they paid in, then maybe we can expect some intergenerational resentment and tension. But what does race have to do with it? It seems like a tangential and non-causal concern.
What Douthat seems to be saying is that if we don’t slash entitlement spending now then a horde of young brown and beige people are going to riot against white retired people in the 2030’s. This seems like an excessively contrived and remote way of injecting fear into the debate. Am I wrong? Am I missing something?
Why do conservatives think that Scandinavia’s racial demographics are essential to their political philosophy? Is it because they are so attuned to feelings of racial resentment (their taxes being transferred to people of color) that they can’t imagine any society tolerating such a thing? And, even so, can you reverse this? Can you assume that people of color would never support a system that transfers wealth to (mostly white) retired people?
