Overpopulation In Ayn Rand's Anthem

In the book Anthem by Ayn Rand, the main character, Equality 7-2521 stated that in this society most people only live to be around 45. I have some theories as to why this is. They are, the government is trying to control population, Once you stop working you are mistreated and malnourished and, the technology and medicine that we have now and before the new society was erected, are no longer present and have not been rediscovered. My first theory as to why Equality 7-2521 stated that people rarely live to be 45 is because; the government is trying to control population. I think that the government is trying to control population because n the in this society everything runs on someone playing a part in making everything work. Once someone

I think that this theory is true because when these people are not working there is nothing to do for leisure so they are basically sitting around all day and not having any exercise. On top of that the old are probably not fed very well because they do nothing to create income or to help the community out, and if they do not do that then they must not have a large food ration. One more part to this theory is that the elders are not taken care of well because there are so many of them and it’s possible that the counsel doesn’t think that the old deserve to be taken care of because now they live for free doing nothing. In one sentence, this theory is that the counsel doesn’t take good care of the old because they feel as if the old are doing nothing to help the community so the food rations are bad and the help is

I think that this is the reason that people on live to be around 45 because of the mere similarities between the future dark age in the book and the civilizations of 200 years ago. The science was so far back that people didn’t know the difference between a cold and pneumonia. This would cause the medicine and treatments for different ailments to be subpar and just incredibly unreliable. Another piece to this puzzle is that during the actual dark ages people that lived to be 45 were considered old because of the lack of medical Intel. Even in the book’s synopsis on the back, the time they are living in is called “The dark ages of the future”. Compressing this paragraph down my final theory is, the reason that people only live to be 45 is because the technology and medicine is very primal.

In conclusion, the reason that people only live to around the age of 45 is because of one of these three theories, the government is trying to limit the population because they do not want to be overcrowded with people that aren’t aiding the community in some way, the people that no longer work are malnourished and poorly cared for or, the medical technology is very primal and does not suit the needs of the people that are sick and the people that just need help. These are the theories that I have concocted to