ABSTRACT
The basic idea of social security is a simple one: During working years employees, their employers, and self-employed people pay social security contributions which are pooled in special trust funds. As a consequence of the rising controversy over Social Security in the 1970s, additional groups emerged dedicated to serving Social Security recipients and lobbying in favor of Social Security and Medicare. By the time Social Security's finances faced a crisis in the seventies and eighties, the gray legions were a mighty force. As events would prove, a momentous and powerful symbiosis had developed: Social Security would protect its constituency, and its constituency would protect Social Security. Unsurprisingly, the false consciousness about Social Security was very widespread among the elderly. With the rise of the elderly lobby America now had a very large, well-organized, vigilant and militant pressure group steeped in the false consciousness, with sufficient political power to give that false consciousness a decisive influence on policymaking.
