복지국가와 금융: 연금제도를 중심으로

Abstract

This study addresses the issues of welfare-states and their relationship with finance mainly focusing on the changing role of pension provisions in their effects on the social and economic system. The welfare-state in its modern sense can be said to have begun as that for the elderly. Welfare-states have developed in different types, reflecting historically different patterns of capitalist systems in societies. Under the current wave of global neoliberalism, the liberal type of market economy has more appealed to many countries than ever. Liberal market economies such as the US and the UK are characterized by the presence of the larger private sector in their pension systems and the deep linkage between pensions and financial markets. The recent privatization and financialization of pensions in many countries have resulted from mainly neoliberal causes based on financial interests, which has made some negative outcomes against workers in terms of their social welfare to which the pension provisions originally was intended to contribute. With pension funds increasingly and globally invested in financial markets, pension money has become so-called “social security capital” that has to work for profit-making even in risky investment. Portfolio-manager capitalism has prevailed in many countries with pension reforms, which is mainly for the interests of financial companies, but against the welfare of common pensioners. The democratic, responsible and prudent management of pension funds should be made to be a key condition for people’s welfare.