‘Your death is affordable’

The bourgeoisie is no longer simply asking us to tighten our belts to guarantee the provision of basic social services

  • François-Xavier L., Quebec City
  • Thu, Oct 24, 2024
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I recently came across a column by Richard Martineau in the Journal de Montréal, that sensationalist right-wing rag–and I found it nauseating.

“In the 60s,” he writes, ”retirees died at 66-67. Today, they die at 84. Do the math. Seventeen more years of paying them to sit idly. […] Specialists say we could all live to be 100 soon. Can you imagine the pressure on public finances and the healthcare system? But what politician will dare talk about that? None…”

As I read these words, I was reminded of the famous advertisement posted on the walls of German cities in 1938, featuring the portrait of a poor bugger suffering from a manifest psychiatric disorder… “60,000 Reichsmark, that’s what the life of this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the community. Dear fellow citizens, it’s your money too!”

Today, the bourgeoisie is no longer simply asking us to tighten our belts to guarantee the provision of basic social services: as soon as we no longer earn them anything, they demand that we instead tighten the knot of the rope they themselves have installed around our fragile necks.