Ever since the days of German Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ideas of social security and the capitalist state have been closely connected with each other. Radical moves to change the balance, established by the public pension systems, require closer attention not only of the international social policy debate, but also of the world systems research community. This volume strives to close this gap. It is intended to bring together two discussion strings -- the world systems debate and the pension reform debate -- that have rarely met each other in the past. World Bank pension funds will become a major force in the capitalist world economy and will substantially transform the nature of the capitalist system over the coming years.