> They might not have GDP-increasing jobs that show up on balance sheets, but grandma watches the kids (effectively working as daycare, off-books), grandpa fixes things, and so on.

Yes I believe this brings up one of the more poisonous elements of social security, even if it is worth it. It completely decouples the mutual assistance where the parent and grandparent form a symbiotic relationship in the interest of raising the child. Instead of a quid-pro-quo, the government violently enforces a one-way transaction and the older generation can simply tell the younger generation to kick rocks.

Obviously I don't think the elderly have any responsibility to do daycare or fix things, but the fact they can simply not do so while demanding the counterparty still keep up their end of the bargain -- has consequences. If the older generation can tell the younger generation to kick rocks, then the younger generation ought to be able to tell the older generation they can kick rocks back to whatever private savings/investment they have.

That's always been my deep unsettling feeling about the whole idea of "mass-market social security nets" of the type Americans call "social security" - it's one thing to provide for those who literally have nothing and nobody; it's another to blanket everyone with it and disrupt natural processes that are as old as time.

Of course, many actual families do NOT go to extremes, and in fact USE the social security they get to help fund the grandchildren, in all sorts of ways. But you have to actively fight against the status quo to do so.

It's interesting to note that even though everyone 'knows' you don't pay SS payments into some account somewhere that is drawn from later, it's transfer payments now - it is still marketed and sold as the former.