Japan's national pension scheme is "pay as you go", meaning that benefits for retirees today are paid out of the contributions going into the scheme today.
Japan has already reached the point of having less than two workers per retiree. By 2050, that number is projected to be more like 1.5: the writing is on the wall.
Something like 80+% of America worked in agriculture in 1800 but now it’s around 10%. The information revolution has similarly made so many things incredibly more efficient. So how far does that ratio need to go before it’s actually untenable? And how much of whatever breaks do we actually need?
You're not getting it. It doesn't matter who works where. Even then, an average worker could only provide the average standard for him and two dependants. That ratio hasn't changed. Only the standard of living has.
If your "solution" is to cut back the standard of living for everyone then I'm sorry but that is absolutely a societal collapse.
People need to work to live in society. As long as that is true then this is an actual problem with at best very painful solutions.
You see this as a societal collapse, and that’s a fine take. I’m not sure it’s a collapse. I think it’s a choice.
We’ve made that choice, and hey, I like my house and my car and my pool. There are benefits. But I also work my ass off. Is it really necessary?
Anyway, there are many countries where folks live far less extravagantly than Japan…
>Anyway, there are many countries where folks live far less extravagantly than Japan…
Lol yes and they're all striving to get out of that for obvious reasons.
I just think there are possible alternatives to “everyone continues to work full time regardless of how productive we become.”
“at some point, the working population will be far far lower than what is necessary to support the rest.”
That’s a completely reasonable take in, at a minimum, pre-industrial times.
There is a long dream that “increases in productivity will allow us to live lives of leisure.” This is obviously not how things have turned out, but it isn’t clear to me that we cannot choose this.
Anyway, what percentage of us actually need to work? Where is the point that we cannot cross? I am skeptical that Japan will come anywhere close.