Intergenerational Accountancy Is Weird

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” - Greek proverb (maybe).

The logic and sentiment of this quote inspires so much that it feels sinful not to attribute it. However, as near as I can tell, its source is unknown. There are references to Ghandi, a mysterious Minister of Agriculture, a mid-century Quaker writer, and a motivational speaker from the ‘80’s. All I know for sure is that the words make a ton of sense, but I can’t take credit. So, I’ll give it to the Greeks. After all, common sense doesn’t need the validation of a qualified originator.

In this regard, though, I must claim the title of this essay as my own. “Intergenerational Accountancy is Weird” because it falls outside of how we are taught to measure ourselves in modernity. I first used these words in Road Trip - by Joel E. Lorentzen - Uncommon Sense (substack.com) last year, second to last paragraph.

All of us have some form of income and expense to measure our worth, and we hope the former exceeds the latter. If it does, we accumulate savings or buy things like a car or house. With any luck, each of us will earn enough in our lifetime to fund what we spend before we die. But that is not a given. So, out of goodwill, we tinker with social programs to provide for those who don’t. Thus emerges inherent conflict. Perverse incentives abound. Those who can versus those who can’t; as distinguished from those who will versus those who won’t. We wrestle with it every election cycle.

Among the starkest of these conflicts is the old versus the young. Just google “How much wealth is controlled by baby boomers” and you will find innumerable reactions like this from msn.com:

“According to Federal Reserve data from the third quarter of 2023, baby boomers (and older Gen X) ages 55 and up control 72% of the nation’s wealth, with Gen Xers, millennials and younger adults divvying up the remaining scraps as they fall further and further behind.” (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/boomers-control-america-s-wealth-how-gen-x-and-millennials-can-catch-up/ar-BB1k2ZtL?ocid=socialshare).

There is nothing new or alarming here, other than gratuitous presentation of data. According to the same Federal Reserve in their chart below, the Silent Generation controlled 80% of the nation’s wealth in 1990. I’m sure there are better ways to slice the data to get a more granular understanding of how much wealth is controlled by each age group. But isn’t it common sense that households that have had three or four decades to accumulate wealth will have more than those that just started?

Another canard is the complaint that younger people don’t care to work for fair wages. For example, from Business Insider:

“3 in 4 managers say Gen Z is the most 'challenging' generation to work with — and 40% of the group flagged a lack of technological skills, effort, and motivation: survey.” (74% of Managers Say Gen Z Employees Are the Most Challenging: Survey - Business Insider).

I recall reading the same things about Boomers (my generation) fifty years ago, about Gen-X’ers thirty years ago, and about Millennials fifteen years ago. I think it’s wrong. My personal experiences working with every generation have all been similar. Some enjoy work; some don’t.

As a contrast, I offer an all-too-common observation. While visiting a southern retirement community this past winter, my wife and I shared a table with another couple our age. The restaurant was obviously understaffed. There was a “Help Wanted” sign on the door. The food was expensive. Service was slow. Naturally, the discussion was about how hard it was finding help because young people weren’t interested in work. And yet, if you looked around the restaurant, the servers – nearly all young – were racing around trying to keep up. The clients – nearly all old – were busy complaining. How ironic! Who in that picture are the people not working? In theory, any one of us could have answered the ad on the door and the proprietor would have been grateful. Of course, nobody our age would. We are retired. We do nothing for a living. We have many excuses. “I’ve already worked forty years.” “I scrimped and saved for retirement.”

We were taught this. Save. Retire. The younger the better. There’s always Social Security. “Enjoy your golden years! Travel! Do all those things you’ve worked so hard for!” We were told that our retiring freed jobs for our successors, and when we spend our saved money, it is good for the economy.

Alas, otherwise capable people are encouraged to be dependent, relying on the nobility of the young. Has there ever been a time in human history when people could expect to live this way? Living, breathing, capable people who need food, shelter, clothing and amenities expecting (demanding?) someone else to provide for them? I sure hope it works, but it seems like it might not.

We attempt to measure all this with money as the base unit. But I think using money to quantify what generations should expect from each other is another perversion. It’s like using a yardstick to measure temperature. In a word, it’s weird.

Beginning in the 14^th century, it took nearly 600 years to build the Duomo in Milan, Italy. More recently, in 1882 construction was started on Sagrada la Familia in Barcelona, Spain. With any luck, it will be completed within the next decade – nearly 150 years. If you visit either structure, you can see why it took so long. The details are so obviously arduous. Only the rarest of craftsmen are even capable of the artistry. So, are Catholics just nuts? Why would they start these projects? But there are many such structures in antiquity from virtually every culture on the planet. The resource commitment was astounding, and it couldn’t make economic sense. The initiators knew when they started that they would never see it finished. What inspired them? Vanity? Faith? Or is it benevolent instinct?

More recently, in World War II, our forebears surrendered their prosperity to save a world full of liberty and opportunity for their offspring. They lived spartan lives and suffered loss. They did nothing to deserve the burden they inherited. Yet they sacrificed in dramatic fashion for a future few of them would ever know. Then they made us. We, the inheritors of that liberty, harvested the opportunity and live blessedly enriched lives. So, how much do we owe them? Everything. So how do we pay for that? We can’t. So, we honor them. We write books of their heroism and call them “The Greatest Generation.”

How will future generations entitle their books about us? Not just the Boomers, although we’re the next ones out, but all of us? Are we keeping our covenant with the future? Are we building for our succeeding generations? Or have we embraced self-actualization as the epitome of purpose, to the exclusion of any duty to our successors, which may even include creating them?

I pose these questions because I don’t know the truth. I just know what I see. I admit the topic is ethereal. It’s difficult to draw hard lines between these concepts and our personal choices. When discussing these ideas with fellow retirees, most steer the conversation to the joy of having no obligations, just like we’ve been taught about retirement. Some resent the idea that our children may expect material assistance from us, their elders. It’s as if we are trying to be the first generation in the history of humanity to abandon the obligations that the old owe to the young, and that the living owe to the future.

Wisdom is not denominated in dollars. Accountants, economists, and financial advisors are the wrong people to describe our options. The future will come, and there will be people in it.

We should care about them. Those people can’t make a claim or quantify their needs. We, the elders, know instinctively that there are things we should do for which the benefits are incalculable. It is ours to anticipate, however inexactly, and equip them the best we know how. Liberal governance, reliable institutions, and a peaceful world would be great. But we seem to lack the seriousness to think about this deeply in our social discourse.

The wise and faithful among us accept a calling, as imperfect as we are, to honor our elders and to set a good table for our heirs. It’s weird. There’s no way to measure the benefit, and we have no upside in doing so. Yet we know both literally and figuratively, we should still plant trees.