Talk:Gerontocracy/Archive 1

Archive 1

Elder and Elderly

Over the ages these terms have drifted closer together and farther apart than is today. For example in the age of the American founding fathers life expectancy was about 40 years. People aged 30 were deemed "elder". The same holds for the bronze and and iron age as documented in the old testament. Exemplary is the tale on the rule of king Salomon as his condition deteriorated from elder to elderly. Remnants of the "elder" systems sill echo in current times laws. After a person becoming juridically independent, there may be extra restrictions on minimum ages to be elected, to hold office, to consume alcohol, to marry without family approval, or to own weapons.

Gerontocracy is more of a taunt connected to the downsides of elderly than to the benefits of elder. --86.83.108.100 (talk) 10:22, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

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I changed the text to: individual Aes Sedai defer to each other majorily by their strength in the One Power, not by age. This is told in the prequel New Spring. Hence my change to the text. A Sitter or Amyrlin Seat is mostly not very young but this might be because it takes time to grow in strength in the One Power or just to climb the political steps.

I deleted an irrelevant line about a man remembering a model T ford replacing their family buggy. It was useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.183.237 (talk) 04:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ageing electorate

I don't understand the relevance of this "In 2004, a study estimated that following countries are approaching gerontocracy where most voters are over 50 years old..."

Firstly, none of the countries mentioned is likely to become an oligarchy and secondly, far from these countries' ageing electorates being non-representative of their populations (as required to meet the standard "leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population"), these countries' ageing electorates are symptomatic of their generally ageing societies.

Please explain how the countries mentioned will meet the criteria of a gerontocracy.

LaFoiblesse (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2009 (GMT)

Blacks and Mulattos in Cuba

The article quotes the Economist as stating that, "Although the population is now mainly black or mulatto and young, its rulers form a mainly white gerontocracy." This is contradicted by the article on the Cuba, which is described as 65% white. The Economist article seems to be behind a paywall so I can't confirm the wording. - KappaD (talk) 11:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Native American tribes?

I'd been under the impression that Native American (and possibly most other indigenous) tribal structure was usually strongly gerontocratic; from memory, the Aboriginal Tribal Council in Australia could probably be considered a gerontocracy. Is there consensus on this?

Petrus4 (talk) 12:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Monarchies?

I think it's worth mentioning here that monarchies, or any other form of system involving hereditary authority, tend to become gerontocracies, as monarchs rule until they die and by the time the monarch dies their successor may be of advanced age themselves. This can be seen in the surviving royal families of the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Japan, etc. Robofish (talk) 00:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

+1 The Monarchies section suggesting Saudia Ariabia as an example of this should be reworded to explain that this is a feature of all monarchies that practice primogeniture and succession via heirs. I guess we ne3ed to find a reference explaining this first, so I will investigate. Probably a text on political systems would be a relevant cite? — M3TAinfo (view) 01:02, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

"Correlation does not imply causation"

I don't think the section "In various political systems" is very convincing. If "... a gerontocracy is simply a society where leadership is reserved for elders" then it would be a society where the rulers rule because they are old, and thus a society where leaders nominated/elected based on merit or political reason and are also incidentally old are not gerontocracies - for example, I don't think Brezhnev was really the oldest Russian. Another part of the definition states that a gerontocracy "... is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population". In the Ireland entry it is stated that "due to high levels of emigration of young adults, there was a disproportionately high amount of elderly people remaining in Ireland" - the people are elderly, and the government is elderly - as pointed above, such a society cannot be a gerontocracy according to the definition presented in this article, as the government is, in such a situation, not "significantly older than most of the adult population", but actually representative of the actual average age of the population. The examples from U.S. are also odd: that "senators under the age of 40 are virtually unknown" does not mean that senators are senators because they are over 40, but that people under 40 generally are not perceived to be able to handle the duties of a senator. The minimum age argument is slightly saner, but even it is very much like arguing that every country where only people over a certain age are able to vote is a gerontocracy, which would place, I think, every country with any elections at all into the category. --91.156.22.16 (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Criticism

This article needs a criticism section. Pretty much every industrialized nation on Earth has a gerontocracy to varying degrees, and I think it would be useful to hear the counterpoint to the current status quo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.178.233.69 (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Gerontocracy as a symbol for running out of ideas

I have heard in some places that the Soviet Union's transformation into a gerontocracy was seen as symbolic of it "running out of ideas". When a society begins to stagnate, the same generation of leaders just hold on to power, blocking younger people with fresh ideas from entering the leadership. Some have also commented on the rising age of US presidential candidates in recent years, linking it to the American decline (as mentioned in the article). I think this observation, that gerontocracy often is caused by a refusal to innovate, should be included in the article, but I can't find any good sources about this phenomenon. Do you guys agree that this phenomenon is worthy of inclusion? And do you have any sources for it? - 188.182.13.127 (talk) 16:21, 11 December 2020 (UTC)