The rise of state pensions inevitably coincides with the destruction of peaceful, voluntary, and responsible institutions of civil society. This is no accident. Long before such schemes appear, violence steadily erodes capital through taxation, inflation, and regulation. When the remnants of liberty begin to fade, the state emerges as a self-declared savior, offering a solution to the very crisis it engineered.
It is no wonder, then, that—within such a system—many forget a fundamental truth: the guarantee of fixed payment is not a privilege granted by the state, but a hallmark of liberty. The sense of economic security—whether in the form of a regular wage or a pension—can arise only in a society where voluntary exchange, entrepreneurial judgment, and private saving have been—and continue to be—possible. It is not man’s natural condition, nor the product of central planning; it is a gift of liberty.
Yet this illusion of stability can only persist so long as the underlying risk-bearer succeeds. Delegating risk does not eliminate it; it merely shifts it. And, if the one who bears it fails—or is prevented from adapting to life’s ceaseless changes—the fixed payment vanishes.
This is why liberty is not a political option among many—it is the only alternative to ruin. For only a man free to act amid ceaseless change can ever know stability, a truth nowhere more evident than in a system of retirement provision.
In a society born of liberty, the individual or firm responsible for managing pension funds bears direct responsibility for outcomes. If their investment is unsound, if their promises are too large, they alone absorb the consequences. Their capital, their reputation, and their future livelihood are all at stake. This imposes discipline; it ensures prudence.
The state, by contrast, faces no such constraint. It does not act with its own resources, nor does it answer to the discipline of profit and loss. It proudly proclaims itself above such mortal concerns. It manages stolen funds, with no liability for their mismanagement, let alone their theft. And, when it fails, it does not contract or go bankrupt; it simply steals more. The state is structurally indifferent to the soundness of its provisions. It cannot economize because it does not calculate, and it cannot calculate because it does not own.
What the state can do, however, is temporarily substitute the peaceful, voluntary, speculative, and efficient risk-bearing of the market with its promise to forcibly shift uncertainty onto others. The result is predictable: insecurity. The burden that was once spread across countless individuals, each with a direct stake in their own success, is now stacked upon a single, failing tower of political promises.
The question, then, is what replaces this fallen tower?
A single, simplified payout: Universal Basic Income (UBI).
UBI will not resolve the irrationality of the welfare state; it will multiply it. It will convert scattered dependencies into a single, uniform mechanism of control. It will create a permanent client class, each individual tethered directly to the state’s continued benevolence.
The bribe need not be large. Even a modest sum—say, 800 currency units a month—is enough to buy mass political loyalty, or at least cancel out the dissent of existing beneficiaries. After all, the poor depend on it, the middle class is entitled to it, and the state can adjust it at will—lowering it as punishment, raising it for votes—at the push of a button.
This is not the path to prosperity. It is the final stage of the ruinous collectivist project: the consolidation of power and the reduction of acting man to a managed unit, disconnected from family, community, and self. Good thing all three have already been dismantled.
