Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis

One of today's most important national concerns is the projected bankruptcy of Social Security some time in the next few decades and the resultant inability to pay full benefits on time. It has been said that Social Security is the third rail of American politics--touch it and you die. Consequently, it took over two decades of warnings before it was established as a major domestic concern. In Social Security, now in paperback, John Attarian argues that the major cause of this impasse has been the misleading manner in which the program has been depicted to the public, and the beliefs about Social Security that prevail as a result.

Most Americans see Social Security as retirement insurance under which taxpayers pay premiums to buy benefits for old age, with their contributions being held in a trust fund that will pay guaranteed benefits as an earned right. Attarian demonstrates that this false picture was deliberately cultivated by Social Security officials to ensure the program's constitutionality, while downplaying the power of Congress to eliminate, cut, delay, or tax benefits or deny them to certain classes of people. It was also presented in this manner to the public so as to make it popular and politically invulnerable. The resultant false consciousness about Social Security has decisively shaped the responses to the program's financial crises over the last two decades and helped preclude corrective action.