Social Security isn't an investment. It's more like an insurance scheme against old age. Everybody pays into the pot and that is divvied up among everybody who qualifies (retirees).

Is that not what a pension is for workers who qualify by working at a company long enough?

That's not wage theft though. You can't be paid after you're dead. Inheritance is just legalized aristocracy.

So you are supposed to just give your estate to the government? Fuck that.

Why not? Then the wealth can be distributed to everyone fairly. Having this safety net available for everyone and not just the rich would reduce the need for wealth hoarding in the first place. Your ideology has no justification besides your own particular interest in the class position of your offspring.

Because I want my children to benefit and build on my life's efforts.

And I don't want you to be able to do that. If this is supposed to be a rational position you're going to need more justification than "you want it".

That's a truly horrendous position you've taken. You're arguing that it is somehow rational to not want a child to benefit from his or her caretakers. The only logical conclusion from this is why stop at death? Why don't we make it so it's illegal for a parent to take any action that provides any sort of benefit for their children, and all children are dependent upon the state from birth, with all adults paying a mandatory 'childcare' tax. This way all children can start out life on 100% equal footing, and also without any opportunity to experience what a parent's love and sacrifice really is. What a dystopian future you desire.

Actually, we live in quite a dystopian reality. Your only argument is a slippery slope fallacy. I never said that a child should not benefit from their caretakers. Only that they should not inherit economic wealth which they did not produce.

So explain what's the tangible difference between receiving benefits while the parent is alive and after they're dead? Either way the child is inheriting economic wealth they didn't produce, which shines a light on the horrendousness of your argument.

Instead of calling my argument horrendous with no justification, maybe you could try engaging with it. I, too, would like to just call you a right-wing libertarian nutjob or something like that and move on with life, but hopefully something better can happen. :)

> Either way the child is inheriting economic wealth they didn't produce

There isn't a whole lot. But you're missing the point of parenting. Hint: it's not financial support. You can't write a baby a check for $1M, plop it down in an empty house and expect it to live a good life. After you die you're not doing any of the stuff that actually makes having a parent valuable to a child relative to receiving the necessary financial support (which will not even be available to working class children under your proposed system).

Maybe if you were confident your children would be adequately taken care of if you died, you wouldn't have to work so hard saving up a nest egg and would actually have more time to be a parent.

Most parents want that. An overwhelming majority, in fact. Not just me. Good enough?

Nope. I would argue that most parents want that because the economic system we live in compels them to.

It also compels me to pay my bills and be responsible with my money. Such is life.

>Then the wealth can be distributed to everyone fairly.

Who determines what is fair?

Divide evenly by number of people? It's really not that difficult.

Amen.

You also lose your benefits if you move to another country and give up your citizenship. What do you call it then?

Make a conscious and overt decision to forfeit those accumulated benefits.

Sounds a lot like wage theft to me. If a company tried to do that to employees who left, that's what it would be called.

How so? You leave, they stop paying you. Any funds for retirement is your account. You leave the country and renounce citizenship, you no longer get the benefits of citizenship which includes social security. That seems pretty fair.

And yes a company doing that is a completely different situation. Like it or not we pay into a pool that if you are a citizen you will receive benefits. You also pay into an account for your 401k that you own. Renouncing citizenship, you walked away from the former account.