Privatization Pep Rally

[Max Sawicky]

>Max Sawicky wrote:
>
>>While I share your jaundiced view of
>>the stock purchase idea, it should be
>>noted that state pension funds are
>>pre-funded in this way and there is
>>no overarching political-economic issue
>>that I can see in that context.
>
>Hmm, well the KKR buyout funds were legitimated on Wall Street when the
>Oregon state pension fund kicked in some big money in the early 80s; after
>that, Henry Kravis had no problem shaking money out of institutional
>investors. Ten years later, you have the California Public Employees
>Retirement System, the New York City Employees Retirement System, and all
>the rest who make up the Council of Insitutional Investors, pushing the
>lean & mean agenda on corporate America. So much for pension fund
>socialism, eh?

I don't know how active the public
funds were in pushing the policies
you're referring to.  for lack of any
concerted effort by beneficiaries, we
should not expect the managers of these
funds to act differently than other
institutional investors.

The idea of pension fund socialism rests
on a mobilization of workers to assert
control of their wealth.  The main knock
on the idea is that no such mobilization
has yet transpired, not that it couldn't
do some good.  The AFL-CIO is devoting
some serious attention to this issue and
we can expect to see some new initiatives
sooner or later.

Whether mobilized worker-investors would
be more socially conscious, not least to
their fellow workers, remains to be seen.

MBS