Between Civic Worth and Economic Meanness: Justification regimes in the verdicts on adjustments in pensions

Abstract

This paper analyzes three central verdicts in the area of pension adjustments in Argentina, utilizing Boltanski and Thévenot’s justification theory. In these cases, arguments from the civic world are opposed to arguments from industry. The industrial world questions how society attributes worth, attempting to demonstrate the meanness and pettiness of pensioners. Legally speaking, the semantics of crisis or economic emergency are invoked to justify suspension of the constitutional right to an adjustable pension. In the civic world, by contrast, the emphasis is placed on pensioners’ patriotic efforts to the forward country’s development during their active years. The right to an adjustable pension is considered to have a humanitarian and social, and not only an economic content. The years when the pensioner was paying contributions were years of worth accumulation and sacrifice. “Reasonable”, “necessary” and/or “fair” proportionality is a key concept, indicating the relationship that should exist between years of work, worth achieved and retirement income.