The Three Pillars of Pensions: Analyzing the Push for Private Retirement Schemes

• Claims that the public pension system is unsustainable are often used to spread fear and promote the transition to private pension plans.
• Expanding private and employment-based pension tiers risks eroding the public system, turning a fundamental social right into a mere market commodity.

Structural Risks of Private Pension Plans

• Cost of Intermediation: Private funds generate profits for managers, banks, and insurers through management and deposit fees, which could otherwise be channeled into the Social Security system.
• Market Exposure: Unlike public pensions, which are state-guaranteed and adjusted for inflation (IPC), private plans are tied to volatile market performance. Financial crises, such as the 2008 collapse, show that future retirees risk drastic losses right before retirement.
• Abandonment of Solidarity: Public systems function on intergenerational and intragenerational solidarity, redistributing wealth to ensure basic subsistence. Private plans follow individualist capitalization logic: "what you put in is what you get."

Ethical and Transparency Concerns

• Opaque Investments: Most pension funds invest via index funds or ETFs that track global indices. This forces participants to indirectly finance weapon manufacturers, oil corporations, and tobacco companies.
• Greenwashing: The ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria applied to these funds act as "ethical capitalism" branding, failing to address the core issue of accumulation and financial gain over social well-being.

Conclusion

• Public pensions provide a secure, solidarity-based safety net without market volatility or merchant intermediation. Private alternatives prioritize speculative profit, ultimately undermining the goal of universal social welfare.