Stop the pensions clawback

The Guardian reports that the government intends to bring forward an increase in the state pension age to 67 under radical plans designed to prolong the working life of millions of people aged 50 and under. Ministers are already pushing controversial changes through parliament to raise the age at which men and women can claim a pension to 66 by 2020. Now, the retirement age could rise to 67 as early as 2026. It would affect 8.1 million people in their 40s who would otherwise have expected to retire at 66. The move to quicken the pace of changes to the retirement age follows the recent decision by the Netherlands to raise its pension age to 67 in 2025.

Your wage or salary is the sum of money necessary to reproduce your ability to work.

Your pension is nothing else than wages or salaries deferred until you retire. Concerns over the effect of increasing life expectancy – sometimes described as a "burden" – are only smoke screens. We need to be clear – lowering pension levels and raising the retirement age are in effect real pay cuts.

Pensions are a transfer payment from the profits of the capitalist class – which ultimately come from what workers as a whole produce. That there is at present a "problem" once more proves that the market economy is incapable of going beyond the limits of the wages system. It cannot adequately provide for the needs of the class that produces and distributes all the wealth in the first place.

Advances gained from the increased productivity of our labour – including an increased life span – are being clawed back by capital to its advantage, pushing the burden from the capitalists onto the workers.

The capitalist class encourages us to see their interests and problems as ours. As a result we find our lives opened up to the chaos and uncontrollable insanity of the market. The market system cannot provide any security for us in the long run, which is why we need to turn the current struggle over wages, salaries, and pensions into a politically organised movement for a society based upon the direct satisfaction of human needs.

The gains made by workers on pensions and other related issues have not, after all, been granted by benevolent governments or employers – they had to be fought for. If those gains are to be defended, democratic and unified action by workers is necessary.

If governments and employers win on pensions they will try it again with something else.