By Michael Pakaluk.

God's plan for a person's support in old age can be stated in five words: children, and the extended family.

The Church teaches that this is affirmed by the Fourth Commandment. "Honor your father and your mother" means to obey them when under their care, and to love and honor them always, which includes providing them with the necessities of life when they are old and infirm. "Children must give their parents material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress." (CCC 2218)

It's just that children repay their parents, treating their parents as once their parents treated them. The incentives are sound also: parents have an incentive to have children, to raise them well, to act towards each other so that their children will continue to love them - and to care for themselves, ultimately, by caring for others.

In cases where the couple cannot have children, or where the children have perished by war or disease, then - by "subsidiarity" - the extended family first should step in to act in their stead, much the way Elizabeth's kinswoman, Mary, helped her.

One may consider which is the more serious obligation, to care for the children one has begotten, or to care, when necessary, for those who have begotten you? Certainly, the latter is a highly serious obligation. Christ himself inveighed against those Pharisees who nullified the Commandment, teaching that children could withhold such care on the grounds that the available resources had already been declared "Corban," that is, dedicated to God. (Mark 7:11)

Arguably, our own Corban today is so-called Social Security "insurance." Suppose an elderly couple worked hard to raise, say, four wage-earning children and in justice wished later to claim from them needed support. The children certainly could each give 12.4 percent out of their incomes - a tidy sum - since they are already paying that to the government. And yet those funds cannot be touched, as they are " Corban" - dedicated already to paying for the retirements of strangers who did nothing to raise them.

"You nullify God's commandment by the traditions of men." Up against the claim upon their children in natural law, which parents have, is a tradition of men (i.e., SS) that is very weak indeed. As several SCOTUS opinions have clarified, "Social Security beneficiaries" have no property rights in what they paid into the system, and neither do they have a contractual claim. Congress could decide tomorrow to abolish the whole Social Security system on the grounds, say, that it is no longer wise to borrow from foreign governments (as we must do) to pay the benefits.

It's not that the government needs to step in here to do something lower-level entities cannot do. If a man today at age 25 starts work in a $50,000/year job and, in a compulsory system, puts as much income into an index fund as he's paying for Social Security "insurance" premiums (and suppose he never increases his contributions even if his salary grows), he will nevertheless have $8 million in his investment account when he retires at age 75 - enough so that he can live in luxury with his wife, cover their medical expenses, and have lots besides to bequeath to their children. That's how wealthy we are. I am not imagining an extraordinary case but assigning conservative figures to the most common, widely attainable case.

One arrives at similar grand retirement fund if one imagines that the father doesn't pay in anything himself. Instead, his children, in a compulsory system, as soon as they start work, contribute 12.4 percent of their earnings, until the time of their parents' deaths. The scheme is doable, we know, because we do it already, for strangers, through the government.

Social Security and government schools are of a piece. Parents are the primary educators of their children: they should have the first claim on a family's resources for educating their children. Yet their claim comes second, if there's an...