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staple item especially for the political right. What Carolyn Harding
called the "neoliberal temporality" (Hardin 95) has effectively re-
conceptualized the civic identity of senior Americans through a
paradigm shift from rights torisks:risks for the economic future of the
country, fiscal viability, the international competitiveness of the United
States,mostofallariskforfuturegenerations.
The background music accompanying this paradigm shift has been
provided by claims made for intergenerational justice, just like the
Samuelson text quoted above. This pitted "greedy geezers" against the
deserving but indigent young or middle aged: "the past 30 years the
elderlyintheUnitedStateshavereceivedfarmorethantheyoungfora
simple reason—the elderly have more votes than parents with children"
(United Nations 80). As the generation that right now pays out benefits
for the elderly is given reason to doubt that it will receive these same
benefits in its own old age, people are increasingly hesitant to foot the
bill for what they are told are the excesses of the welfare state, as the
currentdebateaboutsocialsecurityintheUnitedStatesshows(Gullette,
Agewise31,71-77;Magnus133-42).
This brings into play a field which has in recent years moved to the
forefront of social policy debates: "demographic change." That such a
change is in fact going on is undeniable. By 2050, the very youngest
(under 14) will make up 15 percent of the U.S. population, while the
oldest (65+) will represent 20 percent (Magnus 52).^82 These massive
changeswilleffectivelytransformthepublicsphereoftheUnitedStates,
anditwillofcoursealsoaffecttheethniccompositionofitspopulation,
as the recent Population Report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau has
documented(Ortmanetal.11-13).Eventhoughthesenumbersrefertoa
more or less distant future, they already produce material and
ideologicaleffects.
Especially"thediscoursesofanapocalypticdemography"(Gee753)
focus on the growing number of elderly people in order to project a
bleakfutureinwhichalltheassetsofU.S.-Americanandothersocieties
of the GlobalNorth will be depleted by spending on socialsecurity and
(^82) My argument here has profited enormously from Franz-Xaver Kaufmann's
Schrumpfende Gesellschaft: Vom Bevölkerungsrückgang und seinen Folgen.
Frankfurt/Main:Suhrkamp,2005.Print.