News from the first deputy is being published, stating that retirees are a burden on the government and a financial burden; it is quickly denied and the news publisher is also arrested. These statements are representative of the same perspective we are familiar with: the worker is a burden on the employer, the sick are a burden on society, the cost of schools is a burden on the budget, in short, “we” have no benefit for them. As long as we can work and pay for insurance funds, we are tolerable, but as soon as we try to reclaim some of our work benefits, we are no longer profitable.

I have no dealings with government mechanisms and their economy; in this short article, I will talk about humanity. Peter Kropotkin, the anarchist theorist of the past century, saw cooperation as the factor for human evolution: when humans were able to form larger groups and conquer nature, they learned the way of interacting with each other and instead of fighting over limited resources, they expanded those resources. In such societies, contrary to social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest did not work and instead, social roles were formed and the needs of humans were met.

Imagine a human who must provide food, protect their herd at night, bring and raise children, fight against cold, heat, hunger, and harsh nature, and sometimes even compete with other herds of their own kind. This is almost the same situation that we know from our prehistoric ancestors. But for us, things have progressed differently; we have domesticated ourselves and made peace with our own kind, divided tasks, and increased our lifespan, giving us more time to focus on culture. We have also become more permanent on the earth compared to our predecessors. There was always someone to keep the fire burning and take care of the children, someone to hunt or gather, and someone to build homes, make clothes, and create tools for hunting. Our evolution was not based on survival of the fittest, but rather on mutual cooperation. Years later, researchers began to associate their theory of self-domestication with Kropotkin’s ideas.

Our evolution is still based on the same logic of cooperation: countless humans work and build a world on what their predecessors have achieved, and some of those predecessors are still present and benefit from the world they helped create. Mutual aid leads to the creation of technologies that were once just dreams for previous generations. Groups all over the world work together to produce medicines or industrial products that improve our lives. How can someone be creative if they have no hope for their future after years of work? Serving humanity is only possible when we receive services from others; it is not a one-way street and mutual aid continues to work.

In the same way that we are, with the same culture and teachings that are part of our evolution and preservation of social order, respect for elders, the wise, and the experienced, and in short, those who have lived longer than us, is valuable to us; not because they are inherently good or understand better than us, but because we do not follow the path of social Darwinism or have the mindset of profiting from others. Etiquette, which tells us to respect our elders, is missing in this economic system because the elderly or sick do not work and if “they” needed it for economic benefits, even children would have to work. The etiquette that we have learned is not a path separate from our evolution and in fact, is not for our collective benefit, our collective benefit lies in continuing mutual cooperation.

Someone who has worked for several years and has given a portion of their income to a fund, has the right to benefit from it in their old age. These funds can be seen as a mechanism for mutual assistance. Now, a government that borrows from these funds and does not pay them back, burdens that person; unaware that they have come to seek their own money. Does the government, which is supposed to protect us, take our money and make us a burden on society? Human society has always existed and has protected itself from the harshness of nature and time with these tricks. Humans have created this society and have become members of one body, but now a wealthy part of this body is trying to become even wealthier at the expense of other members? Is society made up only of these retirees, the sick, children, and others who work sometimes and not others?

The government and ruling class consider “us” as a tool for production and consumption. They easily label us as human resources or human capital; something similar to production resources or capital in a company. It is obvious that dehumanizing us results in us being useful only when we are working and a burden when we are not; like a tractor or water pump. We ourselves retire and want to benefit from the years of our work – which we have inevitably paid for over time. For us, capital does not work, it is our body and mind that brings in income and with its aging, we must have hope in a system that understands mutual support. We plant and others eat, and a time will come when others work and we eat. The condemnation of the story of a man who takes his elderly mother to the top of a mountain to wait for her death, is the same condemnation of “them” towards “us”. When the government man, who has become a leopard and forgotten his promise

Let’s return to the question of beginning, retirement is neither capital nor burden, it is a necessity for social life.