UNSOCIAL INSECURITY

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town— Hendrik Hertzberg: "The Administration�s campaign to do something about, or to, Social Security will get its prime-time launch next month in the State of the Union extravaganza, but President Bush is already busy softening up the battlefield.

Yes, self-reliance is good; but solidarity is good, too. Looking after yourself is good, but making a firm social decision to banish indigence among the old is also good. Market discipline is good, but it is also good for there to be places where the tyranny of winning and losing does not dominate. Individual choice is good. But making the well-being of the old dependent on the luck or skill of their stock picks or mutual-fund choices is not so good. The idea behind Social Security is not just that old folks should be entitled to comfort regardless of their personal merits. It is that none of us, of any age, should be obliged to live in a society where minimal dignity and the minimal decencies are denied to any of our fellow-citizens at the end of life. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house”—that’s a good admonition to keep in mind when making social policy. But so is “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”"