So they are raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 (was initially going to be 65). In 2020, life expectancy in France was 82.2 (all), 79.2 (male), 85.3 (female). People love to argue that the retirement age must rise because there are less young people to pay into it, and because life expectancy is higher than it used to be. This is ridiculous! There is another statistic known as “Healthy Life Years” that calculates how long the average person lives until they get disabled in old age. In 2020 , the average French woman had only 65.3 healthy life years and the average French man had only 63.9 healthy life years. Considering that healthy life years are rarely significantly above retirement age, one would think that the promoters of increasing the retirement age would at least be fierce fighters for disability accommodations to offset this! No, of course not. The only saving grace is that French workers get a relatively good amount of vacation during their careers.

As for funding, well we are all socialists here so you all know that every country has plenty of surplus value that is appropriated by capitalists and then used in various ways (replacing and updating constant capital, buying yachts, etc.). Some of this could be used to pay towards retirement. A socialist government could also adjust the economy to be better suited towards retirement. Unfortunately I don’t currently have the time to do research to put forward a precise proposal right now.

Anyway, my point is… capitalism is truly bizarro world. Automation makes people’s lives worse instead of better. The amount of time people must work is increasing instead of decreasing despite huge gains in productivity. Likewise, prices are on the rise instead of the decline… Really makes you think. :marx: