Inconvenient centenarians challenge Left ideology
Chances are pretty good that you never heard this lady, and if you had it would only be quite recently. Maria Esther de Capovilla's fame was, in a very real sense, not due to anything she did but to something she hadn't done. She hadn't died - until August 27th, 2006 that is.
What attracted attention is her birth date however. She was born in September 14, 1889. She was only a couple weeks shy of her 117th birthday. She was born, and died, in Ecuador. She had been the oldest known woman living though not the oldest ever. The oldest man is Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico. He turned 115 recently. Now a woman in Tennessee, 11 months younger than Maria, holds the title of oldest woman.
She was about 28 years old when she married an Austrian, Antonio Capovilla. That was in 1917. He died in 1949.
Her death is a good time to ponder the amazing advances humans have made. Early man was thought to have an average life span of about 20 years. Of course a large number died when they were quite young. Living into your teens probably meant you would live into your 50s before dying. Yet today one of the fastest growing age groups are people over 100 years of age.
The world average is dragged down by the death rates in Africa. In the developed world people are easily living into their 70s and 80s.
It certainly is not unusual anymore to reach this milestone. The Queen Mother lived to over 100 and so did entertainer Bob Hope.
Not only are people living longer but they are living healthier. The elderly are far more active than they were in the past. The UN says "the world is literally being turned upside-down." What they mean is that in the past the number of very young was high while those who were elderly were very low. But with low birth rates and long life spans the young form a smaller and smaller base while the elderly, at the top of the pyramid, increase in numbers at rates never before seen.
The UN says the number of elderly will increase from 580 million in 1998 to almost two billion in 2050. In 1998 there were some 66 million people over the age of 80 by 2050 they expect the number to grow to 370 million. Those over 90 years old will grow from 56.6 million to 311 million over the same time period. And those over 100 years of age will grow from around 135,000 to 2.2 million. China, which will have one of the fastest ageing populations in the world, is expected to have 472,000 centenarians by 2050. The US will have around 298,000, Japan 272,000 and India 111,000.
There are a few lessons we can draw from this. One is that the hysteria about how modern life is so unhealthy is so much cow manure. The only place in the world where life span is low, Africa, is also the one place in the world where the "unhealthy" modern lifestyle hasn't been developed. Modernisation leads to longer lives not shorter ones.
A second lesson comes from that inverted pyramid the UN was talking about. Modern welfare states are based on the idea of the normal pyramid. They can't survive the inverted pyramid. They survive because they assume that the generation of elderly will be easily outnumbered by the working young. So older recipients of pensions and large shares of health care will be supported by a growing number of young.
But birth rates are low and the old aren't dying the way they used to. So the numbers paying into the system are declining while the numbers relying upon it are growing. And the politicians in the welfare states are too cowardly to do anything about it now. They are hoping the collapse will come on someone else's shift.
In other words the old are bad news for the ideological Left which who condemn modern living while worshipping the welfare state. I want to see the old, especially the very old, as something good. Someday I want to be one of them.
PS: the photo is of Maria and her family from many decades ago.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (At least do no harm.) - Next (Libertarians and the Right: A wrong alliance today)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Friday September 10th 2010. |
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