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There sure was a whole lot of force and coercion behind social security.

The fact that governments rely on coercion to enact policies like Social Security is not controversial among political philosophers. It's widely accepted.

The controversy is regarding which cases, if any, governmental coercion is justified. There is a wide degree of disagreement here, but even those who believe coercion is justified still admit that it's coercion.

We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.

There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.

> There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net

Social Security is not even in theory aimed at providing a general social safety net, so its not surprising that there are better means if that is your goal.

A basic income sounds to my ear like an expansion of Social Security, at least conceptually.

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