ABSTRACT
Reforms such as public enterprise and the redirection of pension funds are national or at least state wide in scope. Socialist and social democratic societies are labor oriented. More than the United States today, they tend to emphasize and achieve full employment, safe working conditions, old-age security, comprehensive health care, and when taxes and public expenditures are accounted for a more equal distribution of wages and salaries. In the view of orthodox economists and historians, technology and efficiency demand that decisions about the way things are to be manufactured, investment policy, sales, and be made by those who risk capital. The capitalist organization of production is geared not to maximize output, but to extract more labor from workers at the lowest possible wages. Pension funds invested in various firms are also a potential source of worker control; but, in practice, they have served as a ready and large source of investment capital without increasing workers participation in decision making.
