The cold war in welfare : stock markets versus pensions / Richard Minns.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Minns, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pension trusts--Investments.

Pension trusts.

Public welfare--Finance.

Public welfare.

Pension trusts--Investments--United States.

Finance.

United States.

Public welfare--United States--Finance.

Pension trusts--Investments--Great Britain.

Public welfare--Great Britain--Finance.

Pension trusts--Investments--Commonwealth countries.

Public welfare--Commonwealth countries--Finance.

Commonwealth countries.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xv, 240 pages : illustrations, 1 map ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : VERSO, 2001.

Summary:

A new Cold War has developed between competing blocs of countries over the role of financial markets versus the state in the provision of pensions and the financing of the economy more generally.

An Anglo-American bloc, which has spread into South America, Australia, Canada and Japan, among other countries, favours private pension investment on stock markets. Proponents of this approach argue that it will be much more efficient and provide capital for corporate growth, thereby making pensions more viable through increasing financial returns for future pensioners. A European bloc, which covers most European countries other than the UK, favours state provision and a much smaller role for stock markets in pensions' provision and in corporate relations with the financial sector. This model is, unsurprisingly, under threat from the World Bank, financial markets, and many senior academics in the US and Britain.

This book is the first to analyse comprehensively this situation. It argues that social provision and corporate relationships with the financial sector are inextricably linked, and moreover that the expansion of private pensions through stock markets has all the attendant consequences for the control of companies by investors on those markets who want to maximise individual financial returns as opposed to corporate growth. Indeed, the book comes to the conclusion that many of the arguments used in support of the Anglo-American approach are based not on improving pensions and economic growth but rather on how to promote stock markets themselves, a decidedly different matter.

Contents:

1 Welfare Blocs and Pensions 1

2 Financial Markets and Pension Funds 23

3 Typologies of Capitalism and Welfare Systems 35

4 The Opposing Claims of the Welfare Blocs 51

5 The Capital-market Business 78

6 Rates of Return and Welfare 110

7 Manias, Panics and Pension Funds 131

8 Arbitrage Capitalism 154

9 The End of the Welfare State? 176

10 Proposals for Change 197

Appendix A 'Human Development Index' for Pension Funds 212.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-231) and index.

ISBN:

1859846254

OCLC:

45636957