Read RooseveltCare to End Social Security

     I have finished the book, RooseveltCare: How Social Security is Sabotaging the Land of Self-Reliance, written by Objectivist, Don Watkins.

Before reading it, I didn't know that much about the Social Security system.  The book explains how the entire bureaucracy is one big Ponzi scheme--where government takes from the young and gives to the old with false promises to the wary that by the time those younger Americans become old, there will be plenty of future generations able and willing to finance them.

But, Watkins takes his expose deeper than a typical nightmare revealing of a system of vice.  He explores the morality of those who support and oppose what has become the status quo.

My favorite part of his book is the first chapter which enlightens the reader about the historical moral virtue of most Americans before 1934.

"Typically, elderly Americans continued to support themselves through productive work until the end of their lives.  This was seldom a tragic necessity.  Most did not want to retire.  They took pride and found meaning in their work.  The prospect of spending their final years sitting at home without purpose or aim was hardly enticing." (p.19)

The one part of Watkins' philosophy that I don't know whether I agree with, is his argument that Objectivists who have lost large amounts of money from Social Security taxes over the years, should accept Social Security in "restitution".  This conflicts with my personal "amendment" to the Objectivist philosophy--that being having an ethic of trying to "avoid socialism".

About fifteen years ago, I received a check in the mail from some kind of social service government organization for about $1,500.  At the time, I thought I would cash it and try to send the money to Tom Monaghan, the self-made billionaire who built Domino's Pizza.  I had second thoughts because I didn't think he would accept the money and it would be too awkward to approach him with it.  But, then I thought that I could find a more just way to reconcile its ownership than by sending it back to the government.  So, I put it into an independent CD at the bank--where it has sat collecting interest every month, to this day.  Perhaps, accepting money that has been in the Social Security system would have greater restitution, if one returned it to a billionaire who is open to the idea--maybe Bill Gates?

RooseveltCare is probably the best book on Social Security ever written.  I agree with almost all of it--my only reservation being that it could have motivated the reader more to fight for a speedy repeal.

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for being the fuel of my mind