Abstract
Like other advanced industrial countries, the United States is facing new economic, social, and political challenges stemming from population aging. As this process accelerates and the children of the baby boom start retiring, the debate about the politics of aging and its influence on the future of the welfare state becomes increasingly relevant and passionate. In One Nation under AARP, political scientist Frederick R. Lynch contributes to this debate through a discussion of “senior power” and the related role of the AARP in American politics. With this in mind, his work offers three primary contributions.
First, the book explores generational politics and asks whether a genuine “senior voting bloc” has emerged in the United States. This part of the analysis draws extensively on the concept of “generation,” which Lynch borrows from Karl Mannheim’s seminal 1923 essay “The Problem of Generations.” The book then offers a typology of the different generations populating today’s American society before concentrating on boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964, during what is commonly known as the Baby Boom). As shown, many aging boomers currently worry about two key issues: retirement security, which has been weakened by the 2008 financial crisis and the decline of defined benefit pension plans, and the future of health insurance affordability. These issues point to the debate over the two largest federal social programs in the United States, which are mentioned in the book’s sub-title: Social Security and Medicare. Crucially, however, this book does not offer a detailed policy analysis dealing with the future of these two programs. Instead, the book focuses on the politics of aging in general, which means the policy discussion about Medicare and Social Security remains limited in scope. Additionally, the book offers an analysis of the debate on the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as it relates to the politics of aging and the future of Medicare, among other things.
Second, in light of such policy debates, Lynch explores “the relationship between seventy-eight million aging boomers and the forty-million-member AARP” (p.3). Although not a detailed historical and political analysis of the AARP, “the nation’s second largest membership organization” after the Catholic Church (p. 130), his book explains how this organization has adopted a left-of-center policy agenda amidst criticisms from more conservative members, who have condemned its recent support for the PPACA, for instance. In the end, the AARP remains a key player in American politics, but its future role is open to question. The same remark applies to the potential emergence of a “senior voting bloc,” which has not materialized yet and may never do so.
Third, the book offers broad remarks about the effect of global capitalism and, especially, mass immigration and ethnic-racial diversity on generational politics in the United States. As argued, there is a tension between predominantly white, older boomers and increasingly diverse younger generations, which have been shaped by modern, post-1965 (elimination of the ethnic quota system) immigration policy. Lynch sees California as a great laboratory to study the potential generational clash. For him, California’s “political paralysis and sociological fragmentation” reflects these demographic and ethnic-racial divides, which he calls the “triple age/class/ethnic sociological San Andreas Fault Line” (p. 61). As “California’s demographic and political divides go national” (p. 65), older white citizens, such as those belonging to the Tea Party, are likely to clash with more diverse younger voters. This means that, alongside the existence of programs like Medicare and Social Security, powerful ethnic and racial forces shape the politics of aging in the United States.
Although One Nation under AARP is a well-researched book based on interviews conducted over a decade, it is not a research monograph; rather, it amounts to an academic trade book seeking to reach a broader audience. In that regard, the book truly delivers, as it is a well written, engaging, and accessible read. The book deals with several major issues confronting contemporary American societies, and it offers provocative insight about some of the most crucial social and political trends of our time. However, because of its very nature, scholars are likely to find that the book lacks somewhat in coherence and the conceptual and empirical rigor one would expect from a true research monograph, which this book is not. Beyond this general remark, Lynch’s discussion about globalization and the effect of immigration on American society is likely to frustrate sociologists who study these important phenomena. This is the case, because the author’s remarks about these issues frequently stay at a superficial level, which can be attributed again to the nature of the book. As a result, the book would make a stimulating reading assignment in undergraduate classes dealing with aging-related politics and public policy, but might not contribute as greatly to academic research.
For those specifically interested in the AARP, the book is certainly an interesting read because it explores the ways in which this organization tries to adapt to changing social and demographic challenges. The book is not a detailed historical account about this organization, but it does place the organization into its broader social and political context in a thought-provoking way. As Lynch rightly points out, there is no credible alternative to the AARP as the main organization of its type in the United States. This is why exploring the future of this organization in relationship to social programs, generational politics, and ethnic-racial diversity is a crucial task for sociologists and political scientists alike. It is hoped this book will stimulate further debate about these issues and their interactions over time, in the United States and beyond.