19673 Articles by: Benjamin Case
Benjamin Case is a researcher, educator, and organizer living in Pittsburgh.
The Welfare State Can Survive the Great Aging
Workers spend their whole lives producing wealth for society, only to be told that being provided for in old age is impossible. It’s not a rollback ordinary people should accept.
Retirement Rhetoric
Not that you’ll ever need it, at this rate.
What France’s Retirees Are Fighting For
Now under siege, France’s state-run pension system has delivered a decent standard of living to millions — a reality that retired telecom workers in Marseille have experienced firsthand.
The Lost Matriarchs of Hollywood
American cinema was once full of formidable, charismatic older women. What happened to them?
Five Books on Eldercare, Here and Abroad
We asked Jacobin contributor Suzanne Gordon to recommend some titles she worked on about the crisis of aging in America.
The Making of Millennial Socialism
Jacobin has been a flagship publication of “millennial socialism,” a phenomenon that began gathering force around 2010 and first fought its way into the political arena through the 2016 Bernie campaign. How did this generational movement come to be? And where does it go now?
Kate Macintosh’s Gentle Brutalism
In 1960s London, the architect Kate Macintosh designed great modernist housing for the elderly, still beloved by its residents — but how long can it survive?
Beach Bums and Desert Dialysis
Each year, more people travel abroad for critical medical treatment as well as aesthetic plastic surgery procedures. South Asia and South America remain major destinations.
Downward Slope
After decades of rapid growth, the population of China is on the decline.
No Continent for Young Men
The average African is 19 years old. The continent’s average politician is 62 and getting older — and more authoritarian.
Japan’s Platinum Plan
The dystopian film Plan 75 imagines a society in which the aged willingly commit mass euthanasia — but it can’t imagine a society without class.
Where Communists Live Forever
Longevity on the Greek island of Ikaria remains a mystery. Could communism be the key to a longer and more fulfilling life?
AI-Assisted Apartheid
Israel wants to compile biometric profiles and security ratings for every resident of the West Bank. Amazon is helping.
Canada’s Assisted Suicide Program Has Become a Nightmare
A medical assistance in dying program seemed like a step forward for choice and dignity. But it is beginning to look like a dystopian end run around the cost of providing long-term care.
The Shah-mazing Case
The drama at the heart of the strangest season of Real Housewives was … elder fraud?
The Glamour of Gerontocracy
What the famously elderly leaders of the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union meant for millions.
Old Thieves Never Die
Some of the biggest heists we could find on Wikipedia were committed by the elderly.