Critics agree that when Marx and Engel finished penning their Communist Manifesto in January of 1848, they had written one of the greatest masterpieces of sociopolitico- economic writing of all time. The authors’ success was based on carefully following a four-part formula for writing a good manifesto. First, they addressed a burning issue (the dreadful mid 19th-century working conditions of the proletariat). Second, they employed a highly dramatic writing style (starting line: “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism”… ending lines: “The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains. Workers of the world unite!”). Third, they kept it short (only 40 pages); and fourth, they avoided empiricism (no statistics!).
Isla Carmichael’s new Pension Power: Unions, Pension Funds and Social Investment in Canada is also a manifesto. Its burning issue is that pensions are deferred wages and, hence, the financial assets backing these deferred...
Keith Ambachtsheer is Adjunct Professor of Finance and Director of the International Centre for Pension Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He is also President of KPA Advisory Services Ltd., a strategic advisor to many of the world’s largest pension plans.
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