Most countries face the future with an ageing population, yet most governments are cutting back on pensions and the care services needed by the elderly. Robin Blackburn exposes the perverse reasoning and special interests which have combined to produce this nonsensical state of affairs. This updated paperback edition of Age Shock includes a new preface explaining why the credit crunch and eurozone crisis have had such a devastating impact and outlining a way to guarantee decent pensions and care provision.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A serious and finely argued attack on contemporary market fundamentalism in a vivid phrasemaking style, which is even entertaining when it is not depressing you with the facts.”—The Guardian
“An ambitious recasting of pensions strategy for an aging society.”—Göran Therborn,
New Left Review
“An impressive book … Blackburn argues that the hard-won state systems and the private pensions that supplement them have come under threat.”—
New York Review of Books
“Blackburn’s book is a serious and finely argued attack on contemporary market fundamentalism in a vivid phrasemaking style.”—Steven Poole,
Guardian
About the Author
Robin Blackburn teaches at the New School in New York and the University of Essex in the UK. He is the author of many books, including The Making of New World Slavery, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, Age Shock, Banking on Death, and The American Crucible.
The last few years have shown how badly the financial services industry performs as a custodian of savings and pension funds. The “skimming” of US mutual funds, the see-saw of the stock markets and a string of business scandals from Enron to Parmalat have wiped billions from the savings of employees on both sides of the Atlantic. They have also exposed the absence of responsibility at the heart of what Robin Blackburn calls ‘grey capitalism.’
Here, Blackburn takes forward the argument of his acclaimed Banking on Death and explains why attempts to meet the costs of the ageing society through a proliferation of financial products are doomed to fail and have a host of unfortunate side-effects. In fact, ‘financial engineering,’ as it is called, has enabled corporations to escape taxation while allowing a new breed of chief executive to accumulate extravagant fortunes at the expense of shareholder and employee alike.
The author does not just expose problems, however; he also explores solutions. Blackburn identifies new sources of pension finance–especially ways of ensuring that corporations make a real contribution–and sketches the shape of a progressive and responsible pension fund regime, embracing all citizens and accountable to them.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Blackburn’s book is a serious and finely argued attack on contemporary market fundamentalism in a vivid phrasemaking style.”—Steven Poole, Guardian
About the Author
Robin Blackburn teaches at the New School in New York and the University of Essex in the UK. He is the author of many books, including The Making of New World Slavery, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, Age Shock, Banking on Death, and The American Crucible.
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