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Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth―and What to Do About It
288 pages, Hardcover
Published June 16, 2026
About the author
Samuel Moyn
40 books147 followersSamuel Moyn is professor of law and history at Harvard University. He is the author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, and Christian Human Rights (2015), among other books, as well as editor of the journal Humanity. He also writes regularly for Foreign Affairs and The Nation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
July 24, 2026
A remarkably timely and well thought out argument about looking beyond (or through) class when analyzing our inequality. I think this could make a really interesting choice for a book club, but I did have the feeling that the solution to this problem seems almost more far fetched than the “we have to overthrow capitalism” conclusion that a lot of books get into.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
As life expectancy increases and the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age, it feels like the population of many countries is part of a giant experiment.
Retirement is one of the great innovations of the XXth century. Nobody should have to work until they die, especially in a society that benefits from abundance. Scientific progress completely transformed our lives, including how long we live. This is not an entirely good thing.
Samuel Moyn dives into the history of aging in Western societies, starting from antiquity. His work is extremely documented. The result is a very academic book, which will delight readers interested in hard data and raw facts. Sometimes, reading him feels very harsh. Samuel Moyn does not dwell on the usual arguments (mostly emotional). He constantly connects the demographic facts (centered on the US) with potential solutions. His main preoccupation is to mitigate the concentration of weath and power into the hands of people who reached retirement age.
This book will probably lead to infuriated articles in the press. By definition, people do not like hearing that they are privileged (even when it is true) and try to rationalise their position. The real estate situation is especially worrying, with elder citizens living alone in large houses purchasee decades ago, and families of four piling up in small apartments. I am an engineer in my thirties, married to another engineer, both working full time jobs with lots of responsibilities. Our standard of living is lower to the one of my in-laws - none of them studied beyond high school and my mother-in-law worked part time. One of the reasons is housing costs.
Greying voters are massively defending their interests, even if it means that their children will never be able to buy a home or their grandchildren end up in underfunded schools. I was depressed to read the facts confirming what has been happening before my eyes. I am baffled to witness a whole generation doing away with the future. Reforms could mitigate those effects. Sadly, it is unlikely that a majority of voters (again, because of demography) will support such a change. Just like the aging tenured academics gatekeeping access to stable positions for the younger generation, I do not see baby boomers applauding measures that deprive them of power. Generational fairness is out of reach, because the people with the weath and power are the ones benefitting from the imbalance.
Overall, this was an excellent book that provided me with valuable sources. I am sure the people with the power to fix the situation will brush it off with disdain, though.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC. Thank you Samuel Moyn for this book.
Retirement is one of the great innovations of the XXth century. Nobody should have to work until they die, especially in a society that benefits from abundance. Scientific progress completely transformed our lives, including how long we live. This is not an entirely good thing.
Samuel Moyn dives into the history of aging in Western societies, starting from antiquity. His work is extremely documented. The result is a very academic book, which will delight readers interested in hard data and raw facts. Sometimes, reading him feels very harsh. Samuel Moyn does not dwell on the usual arguments (mostly emotional). He constantly connects the demographic facts (centered on the US) with potential solutions. His main preoccupation is to mitigate the concentration of weath and power into the hands of people who reached retirement age.
This book will probably lead to infuriated articles in the press. By definition, people do not like hearing that they are privileged (even when it is true) and try to rationalise their position. The real estate situation is especially worrying, with elder citizens living alone in large houses purchasee decades ago, and families of four piling up in small apartments. I am an engineer in my thirties, married to another engineer, both working full time jobs with lots of responsibilities. Our standard of living is lower to the one of my in-laws - none of them studied beyond high school and my mother-in-law worked part time. One of the reasons is housing costs.
Greying voters are massively defending their interests, even if it means that their children will never be able to buy a home or their grandchildren end up in underfunded schools. I was depressed to read the facts confirming what has been happening before my eyes. I am baffled to witness a whole generation doing away with the future. Reforms could mitigate those effects. Sadly, it is unlikely that a majority of voters (again, because of demography) will support such a change. Just like the aging tenured academics gatekeeping access to stable positions for the younger generation, I do not see baby boomers applauding measures that deprive them of power. Generational fairness is out of reach, because the people with the weath and power are the ones benefitting from the imbalance.
Overall, this was an excellent book that provided me with valuable sources. I am sure the people with the power to fix the situation will brush it off with disdain, though.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC. Thank you Samuel Moyn for this book.
July 24, 2026
I found this book mostly underwhelming and almost intentionally offensive. This is essentially a book that’s largely progressive and, in my view, too fixated on vogue political issues eg immigration and race, and not many of the deeper structural issues mostly regarding the private sector and job bottlenecking.
Although I agree that we live under some combination of gerontocracy and operocracy, and that politicians should face term or age limits, I am not sure I can intelligbly comment on the book’s proposed solutions. Some of them struck me as bizarre (e.g downweighting the votes of the elderly). This struck me more as some type of penthouse pontification by an academic detached from the real world.
Although I agree that we live under some combination of gerontocracy and operocracy, and that politicians should face term or age limits, I am not sure I can intelligbly comment on the book’s proposed solutions. Some of them struck me as bizarre (e.g downweighting the votes of the elderly). This struck me more as some type of penthouse pontification by an academic detached from the real world.
September 22, 2026
Aristotle: “Old people are not (as pious belief would have it) wise, benign, or tolerant.”
For every six federal dollars spent on an old person in America, there’s only one dollar spent on a child (and that number used to be stably seven, but some Covid things temporarily brought it down to six). A LOT of those $6 are going to middle class or upper middle class retirees (as opposed to impoverished elderly), which is blood-boiling.
Author Samuel Moyn, a Yale law and history professor, starts Gerontocracy in America by explaining that the public health and medical worlds have evolved over the last century to give many American citizens 15-20 more years of life than expected when the Constitution was written, or when the boondoggle that is Social Security was created. This large population of "extra elderly" has only been around for 1.5 generations (first WWII vets and now the Boomers). This second cohort in particular (the Boomers) advocates voraciously for itself. It has amassed prodigious amounts of political and economic capital for over fifty years. Boomers are retiring later, particularly the rich ones those working at the top of corporations and government. They also hoard their wealth rather than spend it.
Our government and the boards of companies that make up our economic engine are imbalanced in their age representation. Both our economy and our laws are ossified in their approaches to progress. Moyn thinks the Founders (median age of 43) probably envisioned more experimentation, expecting the three branches of government to be filled with people who were in their prime, career-wise. These representatives would be more inclined to solve the problems facing the majority of adults and young people, more often. BUT... the Founders explicitly did not put in an age cap, which when combined with our recent healthcare advances has created a problem that they never could have foreseen (Moyn notes that the Roman Senate did include an age cap, but this has rarely been replicated among the republics modeled after it).
There was a lot to take in, in this book. The first half was incredibly fascinating as a mental exercise. I get the sense that the author was laying out every possible way to view all the extra old people in society: from charitable gratitude to a desire for revolution. Let's start with the problems in the political sphere. Besides the obvious downsides of having politicians become physically feeble, mentally infirm, or pass away in office (all of which we have experienced as a country in the last decade), the bigger problem is a “representation gap”: younger people’s needs are not represented in our laws, and they are therefore not likely to support the system and carry it forward. An older governing body will naturally incline towards stasis, rather than change. Why would people who got to the pinnacle of society want to alter it? It worked for them.
Lindsey's note: I absolutely see young people being discouraged out of a belief in democracy today. It’s never occurred to me that age is a contributing factor.
Too-aged leaders are currently an issue in Congress, state governments, the presidency the last three terms (obviously), and the federal bench, though surprisingly not as much in the Supreme Court, where average age hasn’t moved much. An age maximum for public service is highly popular over other options (such as mandatory retirement or term limits) to reduce the elderly's elected representation. This still probably won’t prevent age clustering at the upper end of the wage spectrum, but it would certainly help us avoid Biden, Feinstein, Graham, and Ginsberg issues. State judges often have age limits, usually 70-75.
HOWEVER, there are REALLY firm preventative measures written into the Constitution about not altering age qualifications/limits for federal offices. Installing an age maximum would take an amendment, one of the hardest democratic changes to make in America. Ironically, the most recent amendment was about age; it was the amendment to lower the voting age to 18, which you'd think would help with our gerontocracy problem. "Perhaps we could do age quotas... but how to implement?" wonders the author.
A couple of interesting facts I wrote down:
- More than 90% of house races are determined by primaries, in which vote the old vastly number of the young.
- 45% of the voters in the last presidential election were over 55.
- Political Nepo babies are attractive to older voters because they’re viewed are candidates who will carry on the traditions of their older political relatives
Since we probably can’t curtail old people's donations, Moyn suggests creating an automatic registration to vote for citizens. He also suggests making election day a holiday (yes please). It allows more busy/younger people to vote.
Boomer recalcitrance causes other micro problems for the younger generations. I've begun to sense this in my personal life as I observed a number of people at work not only NOT retiring, but also giving significant resistance to change (because they hold tenured and senior leadership positions). I've also observed the opposite: the last two university presidents at BYU have been younger and each have made SWEEPING changes, to the relief of many (though they also cause churn. But churn, Moyn argues, is the sign of a healthy institution). I've also certainly felt problems put into my path to homeownership in this economy by Boomers buying their second homes at rates exceeding that of Millennials buying their entry level houses. SELL YOUR 5-BEDROOM HOUSES MORE OFTEN, EMPTY NESTERS! Please, we beg you! -Young parents
The second half of the book is where Moyn makes his pitch for HIS way of addressing issues that gerontocracy causes and... he loses me completely. He is a socialist. His solution is to hike taxes and INCREASE the benefits of the elderly, in the hopes that they are incentivize to quit. Then force the ones that don’t want to quit, to quit. Medicare and Medicaid, to him, are placeholders for the state healthcare and he wants socialized medicine, now. Social Security is his temporary substitute for permanent welfare, which he also wants.
I’m... not seeing the vision. He spent the entire first half talking about the enormity of the government bureaucracy that has been set up to benefit retirees rather unfairly, and in the second half, doesn't really mention how any of THAT would be changed or resolved. His solution is just to throw more money at them (from where??? and how is this different than what we've already done?? That said, forced retirements I'm all for at this point!) Somehow, he says efforts at entitlement reform in America are contributing to the gerontocracy. I neither understood this argument, nor did I buy it.
In the second half, he seems to be stepping backwards from his definition of what gerontocracy is. In the beginning, he was pointing out how how much benefit all the middle class Boomers reap from their various overrepresentation, but in the second half, he neatly pivots to only talking about elite rich people (who... I think he wants us to assume are only old? But what about all the young tech bros?).
I was reading Louise Perry in the WSJ over the weekend and I thought this quote went nicely with this book: “Boomers grew up in a high-trust, religious and family-centric culture cultivated by their parents and grandparents. Progressive members of this generation also got to enjoy the rejection of all that once the 1960s swung into gear. They benefited from the old culture and from its destruction. This is a trick that can only be pulled once.” “Their confident worldview was a gift from a different era. And it will, I fear, die with them.”
Moyn recounts this interesting history of a social scientist who advocated in the 80s for legally-enforced "palliative care" after I think age 75 (read: no more life-saving surgeries, no more chemo, etc. past age 75, just an emphasis on making people comfortable and letting diseases take their course). This guy was absolutely hounded for taking this stance. I... kind of respect it though? And would honestly support some kind of laws like this if they came up? "Of all the failures of gerontocracy today, one of the biggest is failing to integrate old age as a definite part for everyone’s life." We as a culture just do not like death, and we no longer prepare each generation to face it. The younger generation ends up paying for the older generation to avoid death AND live comfortably, to an unsustainable degree.
In his last chapter, Moyn encourages us to differentiate between "a tragedy, the outrageous, and simple sadness." It’s a tragedy when people don’t get to live a full life, it’s outrageous when old people are denied what they need and deserve because of discrimination, but it is simple sadness and an ineradicable part of life when they reach the end of their life in a society that has supported them throughout.
Definitely a book that would light my dad's hair on fire, haha!
For every six federal dollars spent on an old person in America, there’s only one dollar spent on a child (and that number used to be stably seven, but some Covid things temporarily brought it down to six). A LOT of those $6 are going to middle class or upper middle class retirees (as opposed to impoverished elderly), which is blood-boiling.
Author Samuel Moyn, a Yale law and history professor, starts Gerontocracy in America by explaining that the public health and medical worlds have evolved over the last century to give many American citizens 15-20 more years of life than expected when the Constitution was written, or when the boondoggle that is Social Security was created. This large population of "extra elderly" has only been around for 1.5 generations (first WWII vets and now the Boomers). This second cohort in particular (the Boomers) advocates voraciously for itself. It has amassed prodigious amounts of political and economic capital for over fifty years. Boomers are retiring later, particularly the rich ones those working at the top of corporations and government. They also hoard their wealth rather than spend it.
Our government and the boards of companies that make up our economic engine are imbalanced in their age representation. Both our economy and our laws are ossified in their approaches to progress. Moyn thinks the Founders (median age of 43) probably envisioned more experimentation, expecting the three branches of government to be filled with people who were in their prime, career-wise. These representatives would be more inclined to solve the problems facing the majority of adults and young people, more often. BUT... the Founders explicitly did not put in an age cap, which when combined with our recent healthcare advances has created a problem that they never could have foreseen (Moyn notes that the Roman Senate did include an age cap, but this has rarely been replicated among the republics modeled after it).
There was a lot to take in, in this book. The first half was incredibly fascinating as a mental exercise. I get the sense that the author was laying out every possible way to view all the extra old people in society: from charitable gratitude to a desire for revolution. Let's start with the problems in the political sphere. Besides the obvious downsides of having politicians become physically feeble, mentally infirm, or pass away in office (all of which we have experienced as a country in the last decade), the bigger problem is a “representation gap”: younger people’s needs are not represented in our laws, and they are therefore not likely to support the system and carry it forward. An older governing body will naturally incline towards stasis, rather than change. Why would people who got to the pinnacle of society want to alter it? It worked for them.
Lindsey's note: I absolutely see young people being discouraged out of a belief in democracy today. It’s never occurred to me that age is a contributing factor.
Too-aged leaders are currently an issue in Congress, state governments, the presidency the last three terms (obviously), and the federal bench, though surprisingly not as much in the Supreme Court, where average age hasn’t moved much. An age maximum for public service is highly popular over other options (such as mandatory retirement or term limits) to reduce the elderly's elected representation. This still probably won’t prevent age clustering at the upper end of the wage spectrum, but it would certainly help us avoid Biden, Feinstein, Graham, and Ginsberg issues. State judges often have age limits, usually 70-75.
HOWEVER, there are REALLY firm preventative measures written into the Constitution about not altering age qualifications/limits for federal offices. Installing an age maximum would take an amendment, one of the hardest democratic changes to make in America. Ironically, the most recent amendment was about age; it was the amendment to lower the voting age to 18, which you'd think would help with our gerontocracy problem. "Perhaps we could do age quotas... but how to implement?" wonders the author.
A couple of interesting facts I wrote down:
- More than 90% of house races are determined by primaries, in which vote the old vastly number of the young.
- 45% of the voters in the last presidential election were over 55.
- Political Nepo babies are attractive to older voters because they’re viewed are candidates who will carry on the traditions of their older political relatives
Since we probably can’t curtail old people's donations, Moyn suggests creating an automatic registration to vote for citizens. He also suggests making election day a holiday (yes please). It allows more busy/younger people to vote.
Boomer recalcitrance causes other micro problems for the younger generations. I've begun to sense this in my personal life as I observed a number of people at work not only NOT retiring, but also giving significant resistance to change (because they hold tenured and senior leadership positions). I've also observed the opposite: the last two university presidents at BYU have been younger and each have made SWEEPING changes, to the relief of many (though they also cause churn. But churn, Moyn argues, is the sign of a healthy institution). I've also certainly felt problems put into my path to homeownership in this economy by Boomers buying their second homes at rates exceeding that of Millennials buying their entry level houses. SELL YOUR 5-BEDROOM HOUSES MORE OFTEN, EMPTY NESTERS! Please, we beg you! -Young parents
The second half of the book is where Moyn makes his pitch for HIS way of addressing issues that gerontocracy causes and... he loses me completely. He is a socialist. His solution is to hike taxes and INCREASE the benefits of the elderly, in the hopes that they are incentivize to quit. Then force the ones that don’t want to quit, to quit. Medicare and Medicaid, to him, are placeholders for the state healthcare and he wants socialized medicine, now. Social Security is his temporary substitute for permanent welfare, which he also wants.
I’m... not seeing the vision. He spent the entire first half talking about the enormity of the government bureaucracy that has been set up to benefit retirees rather unfairly, and in the second half, doesn't really mention how any of THAT would be changed or resolved. His solution is just to throw more money at them (from where??? and how is this different than what we've already done?? That said, forced retirements I'm all for at this point!) Somehow, he says efforts at entitlement reform in America are contributing to the gerontocracy. I neither understood this argument, nor did I buy it.
In the second half, he seems to be stepping backwards from his definition of what gerontocracy is. In the beginning, he was pointing out how how much benefit all the middle class Boomers reap from their various overrepresentation, but in the second half, he neatly pivots to only talking about elite rich people (who... I think he wants us to assume are only old? But what about all the young tech bros?).
I was reading Louise Perry in the WSJ over the weekend and I thought this quote went nicely with this book: “Boomers grew up in a high-trust, religious and family-centric culture cultivated by their parents and grandparents. Progressive members of this generation also got to enjoy the rejection of all that once the 1960s swung into gear. They benefited from the old culture and from its destruction. This is a trick that can only be pulled once.” “Their confident worldview was a gift from a different era. And it will, I fear, die with them.”
Moyn recounts this interesting history of a social scientist who advocated in the 80s for legally-enforced "palliative care" after I think age 75 (read: no more life-saving surgeries, no more chemo, etc. past age 75, just an emphasis on making people comfortable and letting diseases take their course). This guy was absolutely hounded for taking this stance. I... kind of respect it though? And would honestly support some kind of laws like this if they came up? "Of all the failures of gerontocracy today, one of the biggest is failing to integrate old age as a definite part for everyone’s life." We as a culture just do not like death, and we no longer prepare each generation to face it. The younger generation ends up paying for the older generation to avoid death AND live comfortably, to an unsustainable degree.
In his last chapter, Moyn encourages us to differentiate between "a tragedy, the outrageous, and simple sadness." It’s a tragedy when people don’t get to live a full life, it’s outrageous when old people are denied what they need and deserve because of discrimination, but it is simple sadness and an ineradicable part of life when they reach the end of their life in a society that has supported them throughout.
Definitely a book that would light my dad's hair on fire, haha!
July 8, 2026
I have to say that I was disappointed by this book. Even as a 23-year-old who would ostensibly benefit from the author’s proposals, I found his arguments unconvincing. He tosses statistic after statistic at the reader without much explanation, and often presents the existence of some difference between older and younger Americans as bulletproof evidence of an injustice rather than a natural reflection of how being around longer works. Of course old people are richer than those of us in our 20s, we only recently started working!
August 16, 2026
People get old. As they get older, as an entire cohort, they become more powerful and hoard more wealth. We should rebalance society to take great care of our "third act" citizens, give them purpose, and free them from the anxiety of saving for an indefinite life-after-work (if they ever leave work at all).
Reasonable, well researched, well argued. How could someone disagree?
Oh... Oh god. Now I'm on an ageist terrorist list, God damn it.
Reasonable, well researched, well argued. How could someone disagree?
Oh... Oh god. Now I'm on an ageist terrorist list, God damn it.
August 25, 2026
It was weird to me that he didn't really discuss how a rapidly ageing population relates to all the people youth policies he stands for. Why would they (we?) go for them? I like them in principle, but will these proposals have an audience?
September 2, 2026
In which "decrepitude" is mentioned in nearly — maybe every? — chapter!
June 3, 2026
Amazing book! The short chapters made it a very enjoyable read.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The premise of Samuel Moyn's gerontocracy book is that "an aging society is more set on preservation than on renovation," which is not an original idea and potentially not an accurate claim, but does sound like a good excuse to push the olds aside. You would think this means Moyn is full steam ahead on slashing federal deficits, reforming the sclerotic welfare state on which the elderly draw so heavily, investing in R&D, and clearing a path for the young and energetic to build, but you would be wrong. Instead of being pro-human, pro-individual, pro-autonomy, and pro-dynamism, Moyn thinks tired socialistic thinking can save American vitality despite having nothing ever to do with American vitality in the first place and being responsible for the burdens of today. Not to mention the youth today are already quite a bit more socialistic than the old yet are politically impotent and incompetent... Are these your saviors, Moyn?
Let's be fair, Moyn is actually able to recognize the problems with simply championing the young bloods, though his reasoning is wrong. He tries to split the difference and imagine some "intergenerational communion" in which utopian everything-bagel thinking figures prominently. Whoever believes we can somehow balance our current levels of "care and welfare" with new goals of "progress and renewal," I've got an nice and expensive NFT to sell 'em.
For anyone who picks this up, it'll be easy to see that everything Moyn proposes would do absolutely nothing to change the concentration of economic, cultural, and political power among older Americans. The concentration of power is a material reality for which there are many causes and none of which are easy to reverse, and it is hard, to the extent incentives are shaping relevant behavior here, to motivate anyone to rewire these incentives short of some emergency. Maybe we'll get that with entitlements in the 2030s, but we'll see, and it will probably just mean raising taxes. The big hurdle is that there simply aren't enough young people to rejuvenate any society anywhere. In America, Boomer parents didn't raise their Millennial children to have enough children nor did they themselves have children are the same rate as their parents. The demographic pyramid is already inverting, and there is no fix short of pilfering the youth from the rest of the world, which is going to make for a lot of angry people. It's part of why we got Donnie from Queens twice. So the proposed tinkering to taxes, campaign finance, retirement age, pensions, etc are not going to move the needle, and the Boomers are already enjoying "fully automated luxury communism" because of poor policy choices in the past by FDR, LBJ, and their supporting casts.
Ultimately, the problem isn't gerontocracy, though having a largely very old leadership class isn't ideal. The problem is that Americans stopped believing in the American project and shirked their duty to posterity. The future will belong to those who show up, and I know who to bet on when it comes to fulfilling a duty to posterity. It won't be those with Moyn's proclivities. It'll take awhile for this future to materialize, but in the meantime we should do what we can to speed-run technological innovation. Human capital and labor will need supplementation as we grey and shrink.
*Disclaimer: Read and reviewed as an ARC from NetGalley.
**Will return to review to expand it.
Let's be fair, Moyn is actually able to recognize the problems with simply championing the young bloods, though his reasoning is wrong. He tries to split the difference and imagine some "intergenerational communion" in which utopian everything-bagel thinking figures prominently. Whoever believes we can somehow balance our current levels of "care and welfare" with new goals of "progress and renewal," I've got an nice and expensive NFT to sell 'em.
For anyone who picks this up, it'll be easy to see that everything Moyn proposes would do absolutely nothing to change the concentration of economic, cultural, and political power among older Americans. The concentration of power is a material reality for which there are many causes and none of which are easy to reverse, and it is hard, to the extent incentives are shaping relevant behavior here, to motivate anyone to rewire these incentives short of some emergency. Maybe we'll get that with entitlements in the 2030s, but we'll see, and it will probably just mean raising taxes. The big hurdle is that there simply aren't enough young people to rejuvenate any society anywhere. In America, Boomer parents didn't raise their Millennial children to have enough children nor did they themselves have children are the same rate as their parents. The demographic pyramid is already inverting, and there is no fix short of pilfering the youth from the rest of the world, which is going to make for a lot of angry people. It's part of why we got Donnie from Queens twice. So the proposed tinkering to taxes, campaign finance, retirement age, pensions, etc are not going to move the needle, and the Boomers are already enjoying "fully automated luxury communism" because of poor policy choices in the past by FDR, LBJ, and their supporting casts.
Ultimately, the problem isn't gerontocracy, though having a largely very old leadership class isn't ideal. The problem is that Americans stopped believing in the American project and shirked their duty to posterity. The future will belong to those who show up, and I know who to bet on when it comes to fulfilling a duty to posterity. It won't be those with Moyn's proclivities. It'll take awhile for this future to materialize, but in the meantime we should do what we can to speed-run technological innovation. Human capital and labor will need supplementation as we grey and shrink.
*Disclaimer: Read and reviewed as an ARC from NetGalley.
**Will return to review to expand it.
August 22, 2026
In 2026 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux of The St. Martin's Publishing Group released the U.S. print first edition of Samuel Moyn’s book “Gerontocracy: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and What to Do About It.”
Samuel Moyn is an American scholar who holds a Law Degree from Harvard and has a Ph.D. In Modern European History from The University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Columbia University, served as Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and in 2017 he joined the faculty at Yale University. His book explores “preventive” U.S. health care incentives in the United States. He wrote that U.S. death rate with advances in medicines and public health initiatives caused deaths from breast cancer to drop 41% from 1989 to 2021. Gerontocracy is the American wealth and political governance held by populations of elderly people. Under federal law U.S. Presidents must be 35 years old, and senators must be at least 30 years old. In 2020 over 50% of the U.S. population was under the age of 35 years old. Nepotism is also featured in Moyn’s book. Nepotism is the unfair practice of U.S. Congressional officials who bestow power to family members in the form of unearned promotions, assignments based on favoritism, and special personnel advantages not anchored in a family member’s skills or qualifications. He also describes special privileges given to family members and ancestral lineage ancestors and descendants. He has an interesting discussion of nepotistic privileges like the “widow’s privilege” for the dead husband in power with his wife’s taking over his position of authority and leadership. He notes that these U.S. nepotistic practices in recent years have declined. However, his discussion highlights that funding is still high for incumbent relatives who seek and are awarded “a different office or neighboring seat.” According to on-line reference sources, “Incumbent relatives maintain high funding advantages by inheriting established donor networks and leveraging political action committees.” Mayn confirms that the average gerontic age of Federal office candidate donors is 67 years old; and he strongly advocates mandatory retirement ages for American political leaders. He believes that money is a “form of speech.” He also believes that campaign finance reform has been for two generations the “heart” of U.S. politics and electoral reform initiatives.
Samuel Moyn believes American political initiatives should discourage the hoarding of wealth and power by older generations. The U.S. Federal government should implement structural reforms that encourage intergenerational equity through tax incentives, capital gains rewards, and inheritance incentives that benefit both elderly and younger generations. With these structural reforms Moyn says that intergenerational equity will hopefully be achieved. This is a very well written and thought-provoking book. (P).
Samuel Moyn is an American scholar who holds a Law Degree from Harvard and has a Ph.D. In Modern European History from The University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Columbia University, served as Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and in 2017 he joined the faculty at Yale University. His book explores “preventive” U.S. health care incentives in the United States. He wrote that U.S. death rate with advances in medicines and public health initiatives caused deaths from breast cancer to drop 41% from 1989 to 2021. Gerontocracy is the American wealth and political governance held by populations of elderly people. Under federal law U.S. Presidents must be 35 years old, and senators must be at least 30 years old. In 2020 over 50% of the U.S. population was under the age of 35 years old. Nepotism is also featured in Moyn’s book. Nepotism is the unfair practice of U.S. Congressional officials who bestow power to family members in the form of unearned promotions, assignments based on favoritism, and special personnel advantages not anchored in a family member’s skills or qualifications. He also describes special privileges given to family members and ancestral lineage ancestors and descendants. He has an interesting discussion of nepotistic privileges like the “widow’s privilege” for the dead husband in power with his wife’s taking over his position of authority and leadership. He notes that these U.S. nepotistic practices in recent years have declined. However, his discussion highlights that funding is still high for incumbent relatives who seek and are awarded “a different office or neighboring seat.” According to on-line reference sources, “Incumbent relatives maintain high funding advantages by inheriting established donor networks and leveraging political action committees.” Mayn confirms that the average gerontic age of Federal office candidate donors is 67 years old; and he strongly advocates mandatory retirement ages for American political leaders. He believes that money is a “form of speech.” He also believes that campaign finance reform has been for two generations the “heart” of U.S. politics and electoral reform initiatives.
Samuel Moyn believes American political initiatives should discourage the hoarding of wealth and power by older generations. The U.S. Federal government should implement structural reforms that encourage intergenerational equity through tax incentives, capital gains rewards, and inheritance incentives that benefit both elderly and younger generations. With these structural reforms Moyn says that intergenerational equity will hopefully be achieved. This is a very well written and thought-provoking book. (P).
December 7, 2025
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy.
This book explores the role of older adults as an oligarchy that stymies political, economic, academic and workplace mobility and progress. It's a timely topic; I can still remember the sinking feeling of watching the infamous Biden/Trump Presidential debate in 2024 and seeing the harsh reality of President Biden's cognitive decline in real time. Moyn illustrates how older Americans and their interest groups have had the effect of perpetuating the affordability crisis and stagnation in our financial and workplace realms. As a volunteer in local MA politics, the sections describing older Americans' overrepresentation in elected office and interest group dynamics rang true. I agree that "the more boring the election, the more likely it is to turn out only older voters" interested in protecting their home value (and leading to anti-growth NIMBYism) and preventing new taxes. This becomes especially dangerous and anti-small-d-democratic in local politics, "where land use decisions are shaped by political objections."
I found Moyn's exploration of AARP particularly enlightening, especially as I look forward to AARP eligibility in less than 90 days (gulp). Did you know one in ten Americans are AARP members? This most powerful of lobbies is primarily a "market maker" for insurance and travel services, but wields unreasonable power, particularly in our sclerotic Congress (itself an extreme gerontocracy).
The book also describes how the older adult oligarchy prevents dynamism in the corporate and academic realms, and in personal investments. While Moyn's prescriptions for age limits, youth quotas, and Scandinavian-style social aging communities are big lifts in our current fiscal and political environment, this book is worthwhile for anyone interested in understanding how generational divides occur and persist to our political and economic detriment.
This book explores the role of older adults as an oligarchy that stymies political, economic, academic and workplace mobility and progress. It's a timely topic; I can still remember the sinking feeling of watching the infamous Biden/Trump Presidential debate in 2024 and seeing the harsh reality of President Biden's cognitive decline in real time. Moyn illustrates how older Americans and their interest groups have had the effect of perpetuating the affordability crisis and stagnation in our financial and workplace realms. As a volunteer in local MA politics, the sections describing older Americans' overrepresentation in elected office and interest group dynamics rang true. I agree that "the more boring the election, the more likely it is to turn out only older voters" interested in protecting their home value (and leading to anti-growth NIMBYism) and preventing new taxes. This becomes especially dangerous and anti-small-d-democratic in local politics, "where land use decisions are shaped by political objections."
I found Moyn's exploration of AARP particularly enlightening, especially as I look forward to AARP eligibility in less than 90 days (gulp). Did you know one in ten Americans are AARP members? This most powerful of lobbies is primarily a "market maker" for insurance and travel services, but wields unreasonable power, particularly in our sclerotic Congress (itself an extreme gerontocracy).
The book also describes how the older adult oligarchy prevents dynamism in the corporate and academic realms, and in personal investments. While Moyn's prescriptions for age limits, youth quotas, and Scandinavian-style social aging communities are big lifts in our current fiscal and political environment, this book is worthwhile for anyone interested in understanding how generational divides occur and persist to our political and economic detriment.
August 21, 2026
Gerontocracy is a powerful and flawed study of how power and riches reside with the old, and the dire consequences that result because of it. Perhaps the point that resonated the strongest was this: Young people innovate and old people maintain.
At a time when a member of Congress was found living in a senior facility for those with dementia, Joe Biden shocked the nation during the debate no longer able to hide his deterioration and the President regularly falls asleep in public, the ferocity with which the old hold on to power is frightening and dangerous. The tax policies protect the old and disadvantage the young; listen to someone under 40 try to buy a home.
I’m old, and I know many older people who are poor and need help. We will all come to the end of our youth and may require much assistance at the end of our days. But there is a need for balance and to prioritize children as a society.
Up to this point, the book makes a compelling case that change is essential.
However.
It’s obvious the author has thought long and hard for solutions. The problem is that if the solutions have absolutely no chance of being adopted, what is the point? It might have made a better book to include utopian dreams and realistic possibilities; without that, most readers will end the book frustrated. They will want to respond to the call to the battle, but find no tools to fight with.
It’s smart and well written. The ending is chilling; one of the most powerful conclusions I’ve ever read.
It just couldn’t finish the race. It’s still worth the read, but there is a missing piece.
At a time when a member of Congress was found living in a senior facility for those with dementia, Joe Biden shocked the nation during the debate no longer able to hide his deterioration and the President regularly falls asleep in public, the ferocity with which the old hold on to power is frightening and dangerous. The tax policies protect the old and disadvantage the young; listen to someone under 40 try to buy a home.
I’m old, and I know many older people who are poor and need help. We will all come to the end of our youth and may require much assistance at the end of our days. But there is a need for balance and to prioritize children as a society.
Up to this point, the book makes a compelling case that change is essential.
However.
It’s obvious the author has thought long and hard for solutions. The problem is that if the solutions have absolutely no chance of being adopted, what is the point? It might have made a better book to include utopian dreams and realistic possibilities; without that, most readers will end the book frustrated. They will want to respond to the call to the battle, but find no tools to fight with.
It’s smart and well written. The ending is chilling; one of the most powerful conclusions I’ve ever read.
It just couldn’t finish the race. It’s still worth the read, but there is a missing piece.
September 13, 2026
3.75/5
This book offers a provocative examination of how wealth, political influence, property, and institutional power have increasingly accumulated among older Americans, often leaving younger generations struggling to establish themselves. I found his argument most convincing when he moves beyond simply blaming older people and instead examines the structures that encourage them to hold onto wealth and power. Some of his proposals are quite sensible: build substantially more housing, reform campaign finance, make voting easier for younger Americans, reconsider age-based tax privileges, encourage earlier transfers of generational wealth, and expand Medicare to cover long-term care. That last proposal is particularly compelling because Moyn recognizes that older Americans often hold onto their wealth not simply out of greed, but because aging in America can be extraordinarily expensive and insecure.
Moyn’s larger bargain is one of the strongest ideas in the book: make old age more secure while creating conditions that allow wealth, opportunity, and institutional power to pass to younger generations sooner. Mandatory retirement or age limits for certain positions may be controversial, but they at least raise worthwhile questions about how long individuals should occupy positions of enormous political, economic, or professional power. Similarly, proposals such as youth representation on corporate boards or greater representation of younger generations in government are worth considering. Moyn is at his best when he asks why American society has created such powerful incentives for people to cling to their jobs, homes, wealth, and political influence until death rather than creating greater security and intergenerational circulation.
Where the author loses me, and ultimately lands at a 3.75/5, is with some of Moyn’s more absurd suggestions. Weighting votes so that younger Americans have more electoral power than older Americans, allowing younger voters to cast proxy votes for children, or potentially diminishing voting rights at advanced ages crosses a line for me. These proposals may be intentionally provocative and useful as thought experiments, but they undermine the democratic equality the book otherwise seems interested in strengthening. Still, I appreciate Moyn’s willingness to make the reader uncomfortable. Beneath the wildest suggestions is an important argument: a healthy society should neither impoverish and abandon its elderly nor allow wealth and power to become permanently concentrated among its oldest generations. Gerontocracy in America does not always offer solutions I can support, but it certainly succeeds in making the problem difficult to ignore.
This book offers a provocative examination of how wealth, political influence, property, and institutional power have increasingly accumulated among older Americans, often leaving younger generations struggling to establish themselves. I found his argument most convincing when he moves beyond simply blaming older people and instead examines the structures that encourage them to hold onto wealth and power. Some of his proposals are quite sensible: build substantially more housing, reform campaign finance, make voting easier for younger Americans, reconsider age-based tax privileges, encourage earlier transfers of generational wealth, and expand Medicare to cover long-term care. That last proposal is particularly compelling because Moyn recognizes that older Americans often hold onto their wealth not simply out of greed, but because aging in America can be extraordinarily expensive and insecure.
Moyn’s larger bargain is one of the strongest ideas in the book: make old age more secure while creating conditions that allow wealth, opportunity, and institutional power to pass to younger generations sooner. Mandatory retirement or age limits for certain positions may be controversial, but they at least raise worthwhile questions about how long individuals should occupy positions of enormous political, economic, or professional power. Similarly, proposals such as youth representation on corporate boards or greater representation of younger generations in government are worth considering. Moyn is at his best when he asks why American society has created such powerful incentives for people to cling to their jobs, homes, wealth, and political influence until death rather than creating greater security and intergenerational circulation.
Where the author loses me, and ultimately lands at a 3.75/5, is with some of Moyn’s more absurd suggestions. Weighting votes so that younger Americans have more electoral power than older Americans, allowing younger voters to cast proxy votes for children, or potentially diminishing voting rights at advanced ages crosses a line for me. These proposals may be intentionally provocative and useful as thought experiments, but they undermine the democratic equality the book otherwise seems interested in strengthening. Still, I appreciate Moyn’s willingness to make the reader uncomfortable. Beneath the wildest suggestions is an important argument: a healthy society should neither impoverish and abandon its elderly nor allow wealth and power to become permanently concentrated among its oldest generations. Gerontocracy in America does not always offer solutions I can support, but it certainly succeeds in making the problem difficult to ignore.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Gerontocracy in America by Samuel Moyn examines the growing influence of older generations in American society and the consequences of an aging population retaining positions of power in both the public and private sectors. As advances in medicine and technology have extended life expectancy, the traditional transfer of leadership and influence to younger generations has become less common. Moyn explores the implications of this shift and considers potential ways to address it.
I enjoyed this book and found many of its arguments and historical examples fascinating. The discussion of how demographic changes affect political and economic institutions was particularly thought-provoking. While I appreciated the author's analysis of the problem, I found some of the proposed solutions difficult to envision being implemented in practice. As a result, I finished the book feeling that the challenges were clearly identified, but that the path forward remained somewhat uncertain.
The audiobook narration was engaging and easy to follow, which enhanced the overall experience. Readers interested in politics, demographics, and social change will likely find plenty to consider in this timely and thought-provoking work.
Gerontocracy in America by Samuel Moyn examines the growing influence of older generations in American society and the consequences of an aging population retaining positions of power in both the public and private sectors. As advances in medicine and technology have extended life expectancy, the traditional transfer of leadership and influence to younger generations has become less common. Moyn explores the implications of this shift and considers potential ways to address it.
I enjoyed this book and found many of its arguments and historical examples fascinating. The discussion of how demographic changes affect political and economic institutions was particularly thought-provoking. While I appreciated the author's analysis of the problem, I found some of the proposed solutions difficult to envision being implemented in practice. As a result, I finished the book feeling that the challenges were clearly identified, but that the path forward remained somewhat uncertain.
The audiobook narration was engaging and easy to follow, which enhanced the overall experience. Readers interested in politics, demographics, and social change will likely find plenty to consider in this timely and thought-provoking work.
June 16, 2026
I’ll start by saying that I love old people and have worked with them for many many years- and-this book helped me develop some of my more complicated feelings about their sociopolitical behaviors. The author does an excellent job outlining the American wealth gap between older and younger generations. Americans are very quick to cite old politicians as evidence of this power, but this book will give you an incredible array of research around how generational differences in housing and jobs contribute more substantially to wealth inequality. I also really valued the arguments, integrating criticism of nonprofit culture. For too long people with financial resources hide behind philanthropic donations while evading taxes for public services by voting and moving.
Where I got confused was the authors suggestions for solutions? At best, I was indifferent to their arguments, which really bogged me down. This book would be fantastic for a liberal arts politics class. I think personally I would have gotten more out of it if I could discuss the points made with others for different perspectives.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author and publisher for the ARC for my honest review!
Where I got confused was the authors suggestions for solutions? At best, I was indifferent to their arguments, which really bogged me down. This book would be fantastic for a liberal arts politics class. I think personally I would have gotten more out of it if I could discuss the points made with others for different perspectives.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author and publisher for the ARC for my honest review!
Read
August 1, 2026Some thoughts:
+ Okay, I'm convinced that gerontocracy is a thing, a bad thing, and a thing we need to deal with.
+ Some of the policy changes Moyn suggests sound great, others I'm not as sold on.
+ If you’re worried that the argument is for us to throw old people under the bus, don’t be. That's not what's going on here, at least if you actually read the whole book.
+ Love a book where the author comes right out and says, "So what's the answer? Socialism." LOL
+ Sam Moyn should sue his publisher for picking this narrator. The dude is sooooo dry and whenever Moyn's sense of humor comes through, he completely fails to sell it. It's actually embarrassing. (In my dream world either Matt Sitman or Sam Adler-Bell would be the one to read it.)
+ I appreciate the turn for the philosophical at the end. I would LOVE to read an essay by Moyn about our tech overlords' obsession with immortality.
+ It’s always tickled me that he’s a Constitutional law scholar who hates the Constitution. Now we can add the Senate and the AARP to his list of hateable things.
+ No but abolishment of the Senate is going to be my new hobbyhorse. I am such fun at parties.
+ Okay, I'm convinced that gerontocracy is a thing, a bad thing, and a thing we need to deal with.
+ Some of the policy changes Moyn suggests sound great, others I'm not as sold on.
+ If you’re worried that the argument is for us to throw old people under the bus, don’t be. That's not what's going on here, at least if you actually read the whole book.
+ Love a book where the author comes right out and says, "So what's the answer? Socialism." LOL
+ Sam Moyn should sue his publisher for picking this narrator. The dude is sooooo dry and whenever Moyn's sense of humor comes through, he completely fails to sell it. It's actually embarrassing. (In my dream world either Matt Sitman or Sam Adler-Bell would be the one to read it.)
+ I appreciate the turn for the philosophical at the end. I would LOVE to read an essay by Moyn about our tech overlords' obsession with immortality.
+ It’s always tickled me that he’s a Constitutional law scholar who hates the Constitution. Now we can add the Senate and the AARP to his list of hateable things.
+ No but abolishment of the Senate is going to be my new hobbyhorse. I am such fun at parties.
Read
August 5, 2026Interesting, if overstepping a bit. Let's take the issue of the professoriate, which may have been the starting point for Moyn's ire against gerontocratic privilege. Maybe at Yale Law School if older faculty retire they would make way for fresh new faces, but basically everywhere else, an elderly professor who retires isn't replaced at all, or they are replaced with someone working in various degrees of contigency. Moyn acknowledges this fact, but seems to ascribe administrators' decisions to adjunctify the academy as a method of bypassing old codgers who stay around too long, rather than acknowledge that this is part of much broader concentration of wealth and power that *does* privilege but only because they retain some of the privileges that have been eroded. Nevertheless, he does raise some important points about the way that capitalist democracy seems to innately prioritize the old, and how problematic this is becoming in our current demographic reality.
July 16, 2026
Gerontocracy in America was both enlightening and infuriating: it voices the feelings that often seem anecdotal and highlights data-driven trends to back up the various claims it makes. It validates a lot of current worker sentiments across the sociopolitical spectrum while proposing ways to break up the elusive gerontocratic monopoly on both personal and wider legal grounds. I wish it had more individual means of intervention but I understand that is beyond the scope of this particular book. It lays important ideological groundwork for a movement that would end the aged rule over American culture, money, and society - a desperately-needed change that would endlessly benefit people of all walks of life both in America and beyond.
July 16, 2026
Great book and much needed in our current society. The author highlighted the cold war like stashing of money by old people in the USA since nobody knows how much money is needed to pay for a dignified last stretch of one's life, especially care at the end of life. Chilling to read in parts since ignoring the issues by simply allowing old people to work forever, i.e., until they are carried out of their offices and work places, has a huge effect on our society and the young generation.
It is very much worth a read and an excellent audiobook is available. Highly recommended!
It is very much worth a read and an excellent audiobook is available. Highly recommended!
August 26, 2026
Moyn explores the fact that older Americans retain power and wealth. He shares radical ideas to shift the power and influence to younger generations. He posits that because old people will (and should) die, they have little stake in a future they are unlikely to see. However, age does not always coincide with mortality. His arguments are logical and supported with data and research, but are also insensitive and highly critical. The tone is petulant and I felt cynical and bitter after reading it.
August 31, 2026
Moyn had a number of provocative theses, many of which are worth further discussion. My biggest problem with the book are 1) for the first half the tone is “could those over 65 just do us a favor and die?” The last section involves a more robust discussion of aging with dignity, but the bad taste was already there 2) He only plays lip service to the very real fact that many of the elderly are low income and some very very poor. The book is really about the intersectionality of age and wealth/power, but he doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that because it is not as broad a topic.
September 4, 2026
If you're not a boomer this is a great book to read if you'd like to get pissed off. Moyn catalogs the myriad ways the old have monopolized wealth and power and generally made life harder for the not-yet-old. He explains how we ended up here (a lot of it has to do with the concentration of wealth I appreciated his historical and international examples of alternative arrangements to the present state of affairs.
Heading towards the primaries with Mitch McConnell missing in action from the Senate made for an interesting backdrop to reading this.
Heading towards the primaries with Mitch McConnell missing in action from the Senate made for an interesting backdrop to reading this.
July 15, 2026
Worth reading for a set of opinions and questions about age that haven’t been well explored in public before. The ebook version only has citations at the back, without clear footnotes, so it isn’t an ideal reading format if you want to fact check as you go (and some claims require fact checking to put into context that the author leaves out, like the environmental impact of cremation). As a part of a larger conversation, however, very valuable!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
the blue print our country needs right now. i wanted more practical insight on what specific steps we need to take now toward making forced retirement and social services/community safety net programs for our rapidly aging population. overall, though, a very compelling, well researched argument. thank you to netgalley for the ALC!
June 30, 2026
Gerontocracy in America makes a compelling case that older generations hold an outsized share of America’s power and wealth.
The book leans heavily into socialist ideas and assumes those in power will willingly trade wealth and influence for expanded social care, which never felt especially realistic. Still, it’s a thought-provoking read on an issue that’s only becoming more important
The book leans heavily into socialist ideas and assumes those in power will willingly trade wealth and influence for expanded social care, which never felt especially realistic. Still, it’s a thought-provoking read on an issue that’s only becoming more important
August 13, 2026
It's always a bit weird for my thoughts on Political Science/policy themed books. For what this is, it's not a bad book. The author brings up a lot of really good points, and while I do not agree with a good number of his arguments for how to tackle the problem, it is at the very least good that more people are talking about this and getting it out into mainstream political and social thought.
August 18, 2026
Makes some relevant and highly contemporary points but is overall stymied by the arguments that votes should count less for older people or that proxy votes for children should be allowed. Anyone who believes such possibilities could result in anything other than misuse and a downward spiral on who should actually be allowed to vote is not realistic.
July 29, 2026
Great detailing of how gerontocracy has hijacked American democracy - how we got here, how it harms, and how to replace it with political and economic systems that are inherently democratic, equitable, and humane.
September 20, 2026
This is a great book that everyone should read. Moyn discusses how the older generations are hoarding wealth and are the majority in politics. He goes through a variety of issues this causes for younger generations and dedicates a good chunk of the book to discussing potential solutions.
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