The politics of pensions
The politics of pensions
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养老金的政治
DOI：
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发表时间：
2010
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
R. Ellison
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Ellison
www.palgrave-journals.com/pm/政治就像毒品；这会让你变得很奇怪，说话没完没了，而且大多是毫无意义的。在过去的几个星期里，我和那些政治上的瘾君子们相处了一段时间，发现他们有着强烈的部落倾向，对天底下的每一件事都非常了解，非常有魅力——可悲的是，他们决心为当选付出几乎任何代价。政治的主要问题是，为了当选，你必须沉迷于细枝末节，玩政治游戏，这总是让你变得相当不人道。就像瘾君子一样。这篇社论是在英国大选结果公布后一段时间发表的；保守党很可能会以或多或少的多数获胜。问题是，无论三个主要政党中的哪一个成为下一届政府，养老金状况都不太可能有太大改善。问题在于，为什么目前养老金没有被提上政治议程——为什么即使养老金问题得到重视，政客们提出的答案也非常不令人满意。这可能是政党制度的问题。可能是政治体制造就了无足轻重的政治家。可能是宪法结构鼓励了政治视野中的短期主义。不断的部长互换可能会在各部门的领导中产生政策真空。但不管原因是什么，这个职位都非常令人不满意。我们都知道养老金制度已经破产，而且我们也知道主流政党对改革养老金制度的兴趣不大。在适当的时候，将会有改革的压力，因为目前的制度越来越不能发挥作用，人口结构也在朝着有利于老年人的方向变化。但是修复一个养老金体系需要几十年的时间，而摧毁它只需要几个月。关于养老金政策的奇怪之处在于，虽然许多个人和机构会在边缘争论，但大多数人会同意，从广义上讲，政府应该做三件主要的事情，并随着时间的推移而做。这些都不是短期政策，而是基于简单的政策目标。政策目标是：
www.palgrave-journals.com/pm/ Politics is rather like drugs; it makes you rather weird, and talk interminably, mostly rather pointlessly . In the last few weeks, I have spent some time with the political druggies, and found them fi ercely tribal, astonishingly well-informed about every subject under the sun, very charming – and sadly determined to pay almost any price to get elected. The main trouble with politics is that in order to get elected you have to be obsessed with the minutiae and play the political game, which invariably makes you rather inhuman. Rather like addicts. This editorial appears some time after the result of the UK general election; it looks probable that the Conservative Party will win, with a smaller or larger majority. The problem is that whichever of the three main parties becomes the next government, the pensions position is unlikely to improve much. The question is very much why at present pensions is off the political agenda – and why even if it gains weight, the answers that are promoted by politicians are so very unsatisfactory. It is possibly the party system. It is possibly that the political system produces lightweight politicians. It is possibly that the constitutional structure encourages short-termism in political horizons. It is possible that the incessant swapping of ministers produces a policy vacuum at the head of ministries. But whatever the reason, the position is deeply unsatisfactory. We all know that the pensions system is bust – and we also know there is little appetite within the mainstream parties to fi x it. There will be pressure for reform in due course as the current system increasingly fails to deliver and the demographics change in favour of older people. But it takes decades to fi x a pensions system, and only a few months to wreck it. The odd thing about pensions policy is that while many individuals and institutions would argue at the edges, most would agree that there are three main things that government should do in broad terms, and do it over time. These are not short-term sound-bite policies, and they are based on simple policy objectives. The policy objectives are: