Six young people came to the conclusion that the whole world was heading for disaster. The government was no longer anything vaguely resembling the picture most people had of it. The bureaucratic empire-¬builders, the special interest groups, the politicians themselves, for the most part, cared little about those people they supposedly represented and this was slowly becoming something entirely different, a kind of government of itself, by itself, for itself, self-protecting and self-perpetuating, but huge cracks were forming in its foundations. Overpopulation was rapidly proving old man Malthus to be correct in his doctrine that a finite object like the earth could not feed an infinite population. Instead of living, breeding, and dying in their mud huts and tin shacks without once ever questioning the way things were, they were shown all the marvels and wonders of flush toilets, the pleasure of a full belly, the power of a dollar, and, quite reasonably, they wanted it for themselves and their children.

How to Pool Risks across Generations makes the case for the collective provision of pensions, on fair terms of social cooperation. Through the insurance of a mutual association which extends across society and over multiple generations, we share one another's fates by pooling risks across both space and time. Resources are transferred, not simply between different people, but also within the possible future lives of each person: from one's more fortunate to one's less fortunate future selves. The book opens with an investigation of the longevity and investment risk that even a single individual on a desert island would face in providing for her old age. From this atomistic starting point, it builds up, within and across the chapters, to increasingly collective forms of pension provision. By joining together, it is possible to tame the risks we would face as individuals each with our own private pension pot. A collective pension can be justified as a 'social union of social unions': an enduring corporate body, which is formed by agreements to pool risks, in a manner that involves reciprocity between the various individuals that constitute the collective. Even though all individuals age and die, a collective pension scheme remains evergreen, as the average age of members remains relatively unchanged, through the influx of new members to replace those who retire. It is therefore possible to smooth risks indefinitely across as well as within generations, to the mutual advantage of each.

The book reviews the finance, economics, and history of tontines, and argues that they should be resurrected in the twenty-first century.

Spanning 60+ years, beginning on the day Waterloo was won, it is a multigenerational story of 3 families during the Industrial Revolution. Lots of detailed descriptions of life among the varied social classes, it has been likened to stories by Dickens. It’s a very good historical fiction. A tontine is a life insurance scheme, stratified by age. Enrollees received payouts after an initial growth period, the amounts determined by the number of living recipients. Over time, as participants died, the payouts became more and more substantial. Towards the end, when the recipients became a mere handful, all sorts of betting occurred in the general populace on who would be the last survivor.

"Bibliography found online at tonyrobbins.com/masterthegame"--Page [643].