Abstract:

Offers a moral language for social policy that provides an alternative to the argument that an aging population will lead to economic disaster because of increased social security & medical costs. It is argued that the dependence of the elderly is socially constructed because of a depoliticization of need & an individualist ethic, both of which are reflected in the rights-based language of modern social policy. The work of Michael Ignatieff (1984) is drawn on to assert that an alternative discourse of need can be developed through the construction of a moral economy of interdependence, which would introduce moral language into discussions of need. It is concluded that a moral economy of interdependence would decommodify reciprocity & need by recognizing the impossibility of weighing human exchange & lead to community-based elder policies.