This house would abolish compulsory retirement - rebuttal speeches

Second Proposing Speech

As Clarisse and Xavier showed you, the age of compulsory retirement is an artifact from the past, which is a burden both to our state’s economy and our freedom. I will then go further and explain to you how this age of compulsory retirement is a hindrance to our social condition, and a factor of political instability. Finally, I will explain to you how we would adapt our pension system to the removal of this age of compulsory retirement, for a better and fairer system... 

Second Opposing speech

Dear readers, a lot of things have already been said, but yet I think some really essential points have not been considered, and that some mistakes have been said too. I will first start with a short rebuttal to Clarisse and Javier : it is not right to blame brain drain on compulsory retirement, as it is clearly caused by the drastic difference of researchers' salary between Europe and the USA ; most people who leave in order to work overseas clearly does it a bit before retirement. I think you are missing the real matter, which is here the threat that the abolition of compulsory retirement is to our French social values... 

Second Proposing Speech

As Clarisse and Xavier showed you, the age of compulsory retirement is an artifact from the past, which is a burden both to our state’s economy and our freedom. I will then go further and explain to you how this age of compulsory retirement is a hindrance to our social condition, and a factor of political instability. Finally, I will explain to you how we would adapt our pension system to the removal of this age of compulsory retirement, for a better and fairer system.

Ever heard of those people who have a pension that is so low that they can barely just keep on living, and spend their retirement doing nothing but watch TV, because this is the only thing they can afford to do? They can’t even get more money by working, at least not legally, and are stuck in their misery, after a life of labor, generally consisting in repeating exhausting tasks over and over, feeling like their country have abandoned them. Even without going so far, as my teammates already said, there are numerous people in France who are stuck with a low pension to live their retirement, that they primarily spend on their rent and food. To them, the age of compulsory retirement is like a social prison, as they cannot finally enjoy their lives, which is the main interest one would have in his retirement; their life just becomes a continuous boredom .

Of course, one might argue that a simpler solution would be to raise those people’s pensions; but to do that, you need money. We then get to a more general question: how do we finance our pension system? There is the usual solution of rising contributions, but it is only a partial one, as you can only raise those contributions in proportions that are correlated to the growth of our economy, which is not sufficient. Then comes the solution of raising the age of retirement, which has been suggested by our government, and by the opposing side. This is in fact symptomatic of the problem we have been having for at least two decades now: it is a fact that the current pension system is not viable, as the balance between active workers and retired people is continuously shifting towards the second side, because of the continuous increase of our life expectancy. Several governments tried to reform it before and of course failed, as to anyone, working longer and gaining less money is not a very appealing future, and so the public opinion is by nature opposed to those reforms. Even if the government finally manages to push back the age of compulsory retirement, let us face the truth: it is only a question of time before the balance breaks again, thus repeating the cycle, with governments desperately trying to increase the age of retirement, again, without success, resulting in endless meaningless debates taking the place of more important ones, and political instability as governments lose all their credibility on this matter, one after an other.

Therefore, it clearly appears that this age of compulsory retirement is both unfair socially and a pollution of the political scene. However, one might ask himself: what if compulsory retirement is a necessary evil for our pension system to work? I will then demonstrate to you that it is not the case. If we suppress the age of compulsory retirement, the main issue is to ensure, in these conditions, that the pension calculation stays fair, and that people do not actually have to retire at a very advanced age because their pension would then be very low. That is, however, if you assume that the age you retire is also the age you start getting your pension (and stop contributing). After all, why would those two be necessarily correlated? You could imagine that you can retire whenever you want, but still get your first pension and stop contributing when you are 60, or a bit later. This way, we can still keep the current system and its equity by adapting it, and at the same time correcting some of its major flaws. Then, the age at which you stop contributing and start getting your pension, could be either indexed on life expectancy, or the choice could be left to each of us, at the condition that there is a relation of proportionality between the size of your pension, and for how long you have been working. Finally, some may argue that compulsory retirement is a way to renew the working class, with young people, full of ideas and dynamism. The first thing I shall oppose to that is that you do not necessarily have to choose between “old” people and “young” people: if “old” people get more money because they are working, it means a boost to the economy, so more work for everyone. The second thing is that if you ultimately have to choose between a senor and a young worker, the young one is not necessarily the right choice as he is inexperienced, and I see no ethical reason for which we should favor young people over older people.

So, as you can see, there are plenty of other solutions to avoid compulsory retirement, and this is why, in the light of what has been said until then, you should consider voting for its abolishment.

Christophe C 

Second Opposing speech

Dear readers, a lot of things have already been said, but yet I think some really essential points have not been considered, and that some mistakes have been said too. I will first start with a short rebuttal to Clarisse and Javier : it is not right to blame brain drain on compulsory retirement, as it is clearly caused by the drastic difference of researchers' salary between Europe and the USA ; most people who leave in order to work overseas clearly does it a bit before retirement. I think you are missing the real matter, which is here the threat that the abolition of compulsory retirement is to our French social values.

As an anonymous spectator pointed out, the proposing team is basing their argumentation on the human right that is freedom to work. I will first respond to that by clearly reminding our readers what our democratic values states. One's freedom ends where others' freedom begins. In the present case, old people defending their freedom to work are attacking on our youth freedom. I am not saying one is more right than the other. I am saying that there is clearly a conflict, and that calling our position Malthusian is first distorting our saying, wrongly making us look dramatic, not to mention denying the fact that there is a real problem with youth unemployment.

This leads to the main point of my argumentation : we will oppose our social rights to your invocation of freedom to work. Indeed, we cannot ignore the fact that, in France at least, delaying the age of retirement is associated with reducing pensions, and hardening the condition of the working class, in order to allow our country to survive the current crisis. Compulsory retirement, as it may not seem, is the last bastion of our rights to retire. Being forced to stop working at 60 is the safest way, may it not seem right, to guarantee that we cannot be forced to work over 60. The next step to abolishing compulsory retirement, is making all pension contributions reduced or stopped over a certain age. You may not have seen the whole idea beneath such a reform : it is to make you stop working whenever you want, and yet giving you no benefit for the extra years you do. So if you imagine - I don't want to look dramatic, just realistic- that you had to iterate an extremely exhausting and debilitating chore every day for 40 years, and that after that, you are told you have to keep on working for five more years, and yet this will not make your life any better when you retire, would you not militate against such a policy ? You may say I am out of the subject, but as this debate is inspired by the current French retirement policy, I think this point should be considered with attention.

Not to mention the fact that we have struggled for centuries in order to acquaint the social statute that was ours until lately. I may concede that the economical context is fierce enough to make us reconsider our positions, but isn't a nation suppose to stand for its values ? France have a unique and world envied conception of social rights, one of its brightest examples being our social security system. Without being inconsiderately reactionary, we have the right to defend what is ours. You do. Vote for us.

Georges H