Franglais:
Rjan:
…The trouble with current workers paying for the retirement of former workers, is that, as Harry says, we are living longer. To sustain this we need more workers per retiree. Since families are smaller now than previously, we need to import labour.
Our past scheme is a Ponzi scheme that is reliant on an increasing population, and currently that means it’s reliant on increasing immigration.
I disagree. The past scheme relied on increasing productivity and an increased share of productivity being captured by labour.
And never mind this country being “full”, the world is getting too “full” for our current consumerist lifestyle.
Ah, the Malthusianism reveals itself! 
Why blame consumers? The vast majority of waste, and the vast majority of choices about waste, lie in the hands of corporations and governments, not with the consumer.
You merely promote capitalist waste, by arguing that every shopping trip is the proper forum for political action, rather than a political meeting. The bosses certainly don’t decide what packaging they should use
or how long their goods should last throughh some shopping charade - they sit down in meetings and make decisions about what packaging the consumer will get his product in, and how long his goods will last.
The post war UK system of paying pensions is unsustainable. It does need reform. Each individual being responsible for their own pension during their lifetime leaves too much space for inaction by the short sighted. So, wages must be taken now for the future good of workers. Less new cars and foreign holidays? Sorry, but retirements aren’t free.
I don’t agree that the system is unsustainable.
There is actually a vast amount of capital accumulation currently occurring (i.e. the amount of production being withheld from wages), and a vast amount of unearned income being extracted from its use (functionally equivalent to how pension funds work)…
The only difference is that the capital isn’t in the ownership of pensioned workers, but in the ownership of a minority of rich.