Rhetoric of social security reform in the United States

This dissertation consists of three interrelated essays on the Social Security reform debate in the U.S. Throughout these essays, rhetorical strategies involved in proprivatization and antiprivatization positions have been studied from an interdisciplinary perspective. The first essay is devoted to the critical analysis of the Bush administration's rhetoric of reforming Social Security through private etirement accounts that have been introduced as a part of the broader political project, Ownership Society. The rhetoric of Ownership Society has become integral to framing the political motivation behind the Social Security reform. This motivational frame involves a fierce advocacy of autonomy. In this ‘proprivatization' framework, the social adequacy component of the system fades away as actuarial fairness comes to the fore as the chief theme. Contrary to this position, I will suggest a ‘prosocial' rhetoric that recognizes the pursuit of social standards as providing the element of autonomy.