ABSTRACT

Pensions, Retirement and the Historical Formation of Social Rights over Resources

CRIC Discussion Paper No. 69

Mark Harvey

This paper asks the question: Why, have pensions and retirement become generalised features of many late capitalist and market societies, given their radical departure from assumed market norms? In order to understand the widespread crises of diverse pension regimes, different explanations for the emergence of different types of pension systems are reviewed and critiqued. The argument is made that the existence of pensions is predicated on economic growth, but is also critical to the shaping of employment as a productive capacity. An alternative ‘instituted economic process’ approach underpins the analysis of how and why intergenerational resources are historically established through funding or PAYGO systems, creating various distinctive and evolving property rights over resources. It is argued the institution of the life-span through times of entry and exit from employment activity is central to the formation of labour markets and capitalist economic growth, but results in new forms of contradiction. Crises in pension systems are thus seen as endemic to economic growth, although expressing themselves differently in different pension systems, rather than the outcome of exogenous demographic causes, or market or governmental ‘failure’.

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