Should we murder old people to ameliorate entitlement finance issues? Views differ
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Lets hope we won’t be turning Japanese any time too soon:
In interviews and public appearances, Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has taken on the question of how to deal with the burdens of Japan’s rapidly aging society.
“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said during one online news program in late 2021. “In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonored samurai in the 19th century.
Intrigued by ideas, newsletter, etc.
Prof. Narita protests that when he suggested that mass suicide and involuntary euthanasia could be efficient budget balancing policies, he was really just using one of those metaphor thingees:
Dr. Narita, 37, said that his statements had been “taken out of context,” and that he was mainly addressing a growing effort to push the most senior people out of leadership positions in business and politics — to make room for younger generations. Nevertheless, with his comments on euthanasia and social security, he has pushed the hottest button in Japan. . .
In written answers to emailed questions, Dr. Narita said he was “primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years.”
The phrases “mass suicide” and “mass seppuku,” he wrote, were “an abstract metaphor.”
I would hope that discussing the extent to which gerontocracy is a problem in societies like Japan and the United States would not include musings, metaphorical or otherwise, on whether murdering old people might be a sensible approach to the issue.
But if you think the NYT can’t bothsides this one, you would be wrong:
Shocking or not, some lawmakers say Dr. Narita’s ideas are opening the door to much-needed political conversations about pension reform and changes to social welfare. “There is criticism that older people are receiving too much pension money and the young people are supporting all the old people, even those who are wealthy,” said Shun Otokita, 39, a member of the upper house of Parliament with Nippon Ishin no Kai, a right-leaning party.
Throw grandma through the Overton Window?
Andrew Gelman has more.