The trend in most industrial societies is away from the public funding of pensions and towards private, commercial provision. Robin Blackburn describes the finance companies selling pension schemes as a new form of tax farmer, offering dubious deals in return for tax subsidies and lavish commissions. The analogy indicates the tenor of his thinking: tax farmers contributed to the lack of legitimacy of the Ancien Régime. Might discontent with returns on pensions, a growing sense that we have been cheated or at least misled, lead prospective pensioners to rise up and reject the delusions of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Blairism and the World Bank? If Blackburn is to be believed, pensions are the Achilles' heel of capitalism.

LRB 19 February 2004 | PDF Download