Retirement and the moral economy: An historical interpretation of the German case

Retirement is examined as an element of the moral economy, i.e., the collectively shared moral assumptions defining the rules of reciprocity on which the market economy is grounded. In the modern "work society", consumptive goods have largely become commodified, and it is above all the social organization of work that is now morally regulated. The moral impact of welfare, and especially of the pension system can be analyzed in terms of contributing to the institutionalization of the life course, ie., the evolution of an institutional program regulating one's movement through life in terms of a sequence of positions and of a set of biographical orientations by which to organize one's experiences and plans. The history of retirement in Germany is discussed by referring to this theoretical model. The German public social insurance system-the first of its kind-aimed at constructing a reliable life course by covering the risks left open or created by the new organization of work (sickness, disability and especially old age). It was thus an attempt to integrate the workers into the existing social order by providing them with a stake in it, ie., by turning them into social citizens. The evolution of this "historical compromise" is followed through the stages of German history up to the present, and related to the current debates on the contribution of the welfare state to the social order.