Banking On Death: Or Investing in Life: The History and Future of Pensions [Paperback]

Robin Blackburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2004

A panoramic view of the origins and development of the pension idea.

Banking on Death offers a panoramic view of the history and future of pension provision. A work of unique scope, it traces the origins and development of the pension idea, from the days of the French Revolution to the troubles of the modern welfare state.

As we live longer, employers are closing their pension schemes and many claim that public treasuries will not be able to cope with the retirement of the babyboomers. Banking on Death analyzes the challenge facing public schemes and the malfunctioning of private retirement provision, concluding with a bold proposal for how to pay for decent pensions for all.

Robin Blackburn argues that pension funds have been depleted by wasteful promotion and used as gambling chips by ruthless and overpaid top executives. This is the world of 'gray capitalism,' where employees' savings are sequestrated from them and pressed into the service of corporate aggrandizement. Even the best companies find it hard to run a business and a pension fund at the same time - especially when the latter is larger than the former. The fund managers' notorious short-termism and herd instinct, and their failure to curb the greed and irresponsibility of the corporate elite, lead to obscene inequalities and a blighted social landscape.

The pension privatization lobby, Blackburn shows, has lost major battles in France and Germany, the United States and Italy, because of the popular fears it evokes. And the case for privatization looks intellectually threadbare after withering critiques from such notable theorists as Joseph Stiglitz and Pierre Bourdieu. Banking on Death shows that pensions are political dynamite, and have undone governments from France and Italy to Argentina. Popular outcries led Reagan, Clinton, and Blair to change tack: will this happen to George W. Bush too? Blackburn argues that the aging society will generate increased costs but, so long as the new life course is properly financed, all age groups will gain. He proposes a public regime of asset-based welfare, drawing on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and Rudolf Meidner, that could ensure secondary pensions for all and foster a more responsible, egalitarian and humane pattern of economic development.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blackburn's dry and detailed book covers an enormous range. It traces the development of pensions from early modern Europe to the present day and expands the discussion to cover a wide variety of government public assistance programs, annuity products sold by insurance companies and mutual assistance organizations. The author's examination of funding pensions leads to his extensive treatment of topics such as corporate governance, tax policy and executive compensation. Due to the range covered, most of this material is necessarily superficial. The main focus argues Blackburn's position that the workers and citizens should, collectively, take over capitalist institutions, with the goal of the suppression of the fundamental mechanisms of capitalist competition. This is to be accomplished, he says, not through violent revolution, but through tax incentives to worker-controlled not-for-profit pension funds, which would invest in sustainable, progressive and responsible economic projects. However, he does not discuss the discrepancy between the mild means and dramatic ends. Still a visionary, Blackburn later shifts his attention to study the disappearance of the financial services industry and the shift of union pension funds from corruption and inefficiency to a supernaturally wise custodianship. There are, in fact, two unintegrated books here: an extensive history of pensions, and a visionary tract. As a history, the book is uneven, with the best coverage concerning the political maneuvering in the 1970s in the United States and Britain that led to today's state. As a visionary tract, Blackburn's position is unpopular both with radicals and the mainstream, but could convince some.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Blackburn (history, New School; sociology, Univ. of Essex) reports that pension funds have become such a major source of capital that they now represent 24 percent of all U.S. equity holdings and are part of the social fabric of Western economies. He argues that, for the funds to meet their social responsibility, workers must exert more control over them. The author notes instances in which fund managers have forced downsizing of companies to maintain high valuations, costing fund contributors their jobs. The book takes an internationalist approach, with emphasis on the United States and Great Britain, but it also covers German, French, Italian, and some Asian schemes; Blackburn does not think the "Anglo-Saxon" model should be the only one. While chronicling the increasing use of pension funds, this is ultimately a work of advocacy, with more than a little leftist slant and jargon, as befits an editor of the New Left Review. But it is more scholarly than most polemics. Mercifully, it is also devoid of math. However, the dense and often dry prose and complicated arguments do limit its suitability to libraries serving graduate programs in economics, public policy, history, and sociology.
Patrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll., LaCrosse
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: Verso (January 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185984409X
• ISBN-13: 978-1859844090
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,118,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars immaculately researched, November 3, 2004

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Thomas Robert Michl - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Banking On Death: Or Investing in Life: The History and Future of Pensions (Paperback)

This is an immaculately researched book on the history, theory, and politics of pensions, private and public. It will be an important reference point for many years; the 'old-age crisis' is not likely to recede in importance. The book presents recent debates about Social Security fairly, and with sophistication. It describes the operation of 'gray capital' which arises from what economists call information asymmetries between owners and managers of capital. Readers will find stimulating its proposal for the socialisation of pension funds using a share levy as a source of finance. The writing is somewhat terse and dry, but always to the point

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pension Study, November 9, 2006

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Mark E. Killion (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Banking On Death: Or Investing in Life: The History and Future of Pensions (Paperback)

A comprehensive review of pensions and retirement programs in England and the United States. The author covers the political climates that have influenced the nature of pensions