Listen, guys, everyone knows Marx said "if workers get a private pension they are no longer members of the proletariat" its just common sense guys
@Catsandcatsandcats dude, Marx's whole schtick was that the capitalist class, defined by receiving income from capital, were exploiting the proletarian class, defined by receiving income from labour. How does that work when the proletariat own capital too? And what do you think long-term pension funds are investing in, if not the means of production?
That's hardly a good summation of what Marx's writings are about, but...assuming it's accurate, what makes you think 401k's aren't a further exploitation of the working class? We all saw the horror stories of people who retired in '08 and lost their entire pensions--which is why so many workers and leftists opposed defined-benefit pensions plans; it was a Trojan horse to further tie workers' fates to those of capital, essentially the capitalist class extracting dues from workers in the guise of a (shitty) pension plan.
@Catsandcatsandcats Maybe 401ks are fucked-up in ways that the British equivalent isn't. I must concede that I am not an expert on US investment markets or law.
But I agree that defined-benefit plans are a bad idea, precisely because of their risk profile. A defined-contribution plan would have just lost some value (and perhaps not that much if it'd been bond-heavy late in life) rather than collapsing entirely.
