Old and young S ir: I have been wondering when someone
in the Labour Party was going to notice the progressive irony of longer live-ability with shorter work-ability—and now Douglas Jay has satisfied me ( 11 December). As things are going there is no great fantasy in speculating that if life-expectation on average gets increased to, say, ninety years and retirement age is mandatorily reduced to fifty or possibly even lower, and school-leaving age Is raised to probably twenty (the way things are going) then—whereabouts the workers? I am no glutton for work, but are we to
m in stead? e gluttons for unemployment And the possibility of some 'govern ment' or 'social' or other type of pseudowork being invented (and it would have to
be enforced as well) is equally dreadful to foresee, Twenty years a young-age pensioner and then, a bit later on, forty to fifty years an Old-age pensioner: who's going to pay for it? And unemployment debility—if not real insanity—will increase; and I don't think Pseudo-work will prevent or cure it.
Thomas W. Gadd
171 Church Road, Flixton, Manchester
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