RETIREMENT AND THE MORAL ECONOMY: An Historical Interpretation of the German Case MARTIN KOHLT Free University of Berlin ABSTRACT: Retirement is examined as an element of the moral economy, Le, the collectively shared moral assumptions defining the rules of reciprocity on which the market economy is grounded In the modern "work society'; consumptive goods have largely become commodifie4 and it is above all the social organization of work that is now morally regulated The moral impact of welfare, and especially of the pension system can be analyzed in terms of contributing to the institutionalization of the life course, Le., the evolution of an institutional program regulating one's movement through life in terms of a sequence of positions and of a set of biographical orienta- tions by which to organize one's experiences and plans The history of retirement in Germany is discussed by referring to this theoretical model The German public social insurance system—the first of its kind—aimed at constructing a reliable life course by covering the risks left open or created by the new organization of work (sickness disability and especially old age). It was thus an attempt to integrate the workers into the existing social order by providing them with a stake in i; ie, by turning them into social citizens The evolution of this `historical compromise" is followed through the stages of German history up to the present; and related to the current debates on the contribution of the welfare state to the social order. INTRODUCTION The evolution of the German welfare system presents in a nutshell most of the basic questions and controversies of modem welfare policy. This is due to its temporal primacy as well as to its specific salience for German society. The history of welfare— and of retirement as a major part of it—is not only pertinent to identifying some key features of the German modernization process; the German case is also especially useful for uncovering the social logic of retirement more generally. The conservative critique of the welfare state today takes essentially two forms. On the material level, the welfare state is held responsible for stifling the economy by its *Direct all communications to Dr. Martin KohA Institute of Sociology, Hiuodf nasse 16, D-1000 Berlin 33, FRG. JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES, Volume 1, Number 2, pages 125-144. Copyright ® 1987 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 08904065.