The Sustainable Society

The key issue is sustainability. 

Obviously we can't pay people as much or more NOT to do a job -- all their lives, so that eventually all government does is pay a self-chosen few lifetime entitlements -- while the citizens no longer have any government functions and services -- which are now only a distant memory of why those few are entitled to everything while the rest of the citizens  just have to pay for it.

Even when the median of those pensions exceed the median of all the incomes, obviously, those NOT working, are being paid more than most of the "working" people -- which hardly seems fair to most impartial mediators -- except that the government mediators are usually vested in that same inequity, and of course want it to continue, and can see no wrong with that.

That is the history of all the civilizations that have risen and fallen -- because they weren't sustainable in that way.  That is due to the unfairness of that compensation system -- that maintains those inequalities until finally, they have to fall -- on the sheer weight that all the money in society cannot be diverted to the least productive segment simply demanding "more than the rest -- for life, with nothing in return."

An idea that makes these pensions sustainable as well as fair -- is to pay all retirees the same minimum pension, and not more to those who have always had more.  But beginning at age 65 -- everybody just receives the same basic retirement stipend, because the basic lifestyle must be maintained for all -- rather than continuing the injustice of the privileged continuing that advantage, as we see obviously in the government pensions, but to a lesser degree with Social Security -- which is much more equal in this respect.

In a sense, one is just guaranteeing everyone in society -- a base level of support, and assume that those who in their working lives made much more, have saved some in addition to enjoying a much more prosperous lifestyle -- which usually continues beyond their retirement, because they don't have to be acquiring and accumulating it at that point in their lives -- but actually should be beginning the process of downsizing and eventually divesting, and not just going to the grave at the high point of one's hoarding.

Then, essentially, one has the base for an indefinitely sustainable society -- rather than just a permanently entitled "nobility" claiming legality despite its gross unfairness and injustice, because they are the status quo and defenders of those institutions (inequities).