7. Pensions and the Control of Capital Accumulation (2004)

This conference explored the question of whether or not large pools of capital that have a public or quasi-public character, especially pension funds, could be used as a mechanism for enhancing the social accountability of capital accumulation. The opening paper in the conference by Robin Blackburn, “Pension Provision: The Crisis and Outline of an Alternative,” explores alternatives models of pension provision – both public and private -- and their prospects for adequately contending with the impending crisis of pension systems in the 21st century, and then proposes a specific kind of strategy for both dealing with this crisis and using pensions as an instrument for enhanced democratic control of accumulation. Two of the papers from the conference were published in the journal Politics & Soicety.