Kompetent, aktiv, produktiv?

Senescence, obsolescence, republic of elderly people, the burden of ancients – there is a huge number of crisis-based labels, in order to describe the ageing society in times of growing life expectancy and declining birth rates. However, this is just one side of the medal: Against the backdrop of the horrific scene of a senescent, burdened society, the well-educated, increasingly healthy and young elderly are discovered as resources for the collective good. The activation of old age appears on the political agenda. Starting out from Anglo-Saxon theoretical perspectives, notably from the Foucauldian Gerontology and the Political Economy of Ageing, the author demonstrates in how far the German academic debate uncritically tends to push ahead the productivity- oriented use of the old men’s and women’s resources, instead of expounding the manifold problems of the elderly people’s empowerment, activation and commitment.