The Pension Systems Reform as a Symptom of Capitalism Financialization

The pension systems are an important object of public policy for many reasons, first of all because they concern in each country millions of retired people who’s well-being depends on it. In the last 3–4 decades the interest for the reform, especially for a structural one, is growing having as main motivation the sustainability risks implied by the system of defined benefits which is still dominant, at least, in the European Union. By analyzing the drivers of the structural reform from the perspective of the capitalist economy evolution I found that the interest of main players-as World Bank, and International Monetary Fund-promoting the reform concern not only the sustainability of the pension systems, but also the attraction in the financial circuit of the pensions’ money deposits. We consider this phenomenon to be a symptom of the capitalism’s financialization. Backed by a larger analysis of such financialization symptoms, I consider the international financial institutions’ strive for a structural reform of the pension systems as a particular, specific symptom of the capitalist financialization present in all the contemporary varieties of the capitalism. One doesn’t make value judgements, adopting a neutral position and even avoiding causal explanations; we only signal a characteristic of the present financial capitalism and put it in the framework of the problems concerning retirement compensations.