Social Security at the Crossroads

Social security is a basic element of advanced human societies. As far back as to the antiquity we find social relief for those who had undergone a heavy stroke of fate. For instance, in Greece disabled ex-soldiers and their survivors received a pension (since Peisistratos, 560 b.c.), unemployed and invalid people got clothes, food and financial relief, and poor sick people were treated by poor-relief physicians. First, in Greece and later on in the Roman Empire associations were founded to cover the health care and funeral expenses of their members. In the Roman Empire those sick funds (collegia tenuiorum) and burial funds (collegia funeraticia) needed a state licence amd were controlled by state supervision.