Australia's 'retirement age' just became 67. So why are the French so upset about working until 64?
Australia's 'retirement age' just became 67. So why are the French so upset about working until 64?
There’s been little protest about lifting Australians’ retirement age. But it hits some harder more others: Indigenous men and women, and the growing number of older people pushed onto JobSeeker.
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Counter question:
Why are the Australians not more mad?
Work is shit. Nobody wants to work.
Aussies aren't big on protesting against anything. They just grumble and get on with it. Wouldn't want to be called a whinger.
But yet they’ll throw stuff at the clerk if they take too long to ring them up or sneak in a tax at the register.
Or tossing out their PM at the drop of a hat.
Or someone trying to hijack a plane
Or drunks on the bus.
I think they are big on protesting. They don’t see it as whinging either. They see it as not putting up with shit.
No, they're right. Speaking as an Australian protester - we have a very conformist culture here. We haven't been taught to imagine outside the status quo, it's why Yank flavour and Neoliberal policies get pushed uncritically here. We're sectioned off in the little castles of our homes - we have to seek out any form of community that isn't our workplaces in the first place, let alone subversion, let alone (toothless and state captured) protest, let alone direct action and informed praxis.
We might have once, but the majority of Australians don't know shit about anything that isn't themselves. We might want to look out for ours - but that circle is very small for mainstream Australia and you bet your ass that's manipulable by wealthy interests.
Not all of us, but the majority of us are spineless people terrified we're not safe enough.
That's not entirely true.
Lot of CEOs LOVE their job, bankers too.
It's just the people doing actual work who tend to hate their jobs.
It depends, right? There are lots of people who enjoy working, but the problem is that the work that people want to do isn't the work that bosses want them to do. In studies on UBI, very few people choose to become couch potatoes.
Cost of living is so shit here that most people can't afford to retire at that age anyway. There might be some older Gen-Xers who complain, but they're not exactly known for protesting.