No one mentioned communism. The status quo vs communism is also a false dichotomy; obviously many, many nations around the world have chosen something in between the contemporary American system and communism.
Over the last hundred years, we've decided, as a nation, we want to do better than "let every individual fend for themselves". We weren't comfortable with the outcomes--old people eating pet food, dying for lack of heating in the winter, etc.
And there are certainly many low-paid workers who simply can't save anything substantial for any retirement, ever. Assuming everyone can sock away money to live on for when they're just too old to work is going to leave a lot of people out in the cold (possibly literally).
I guess what I'm trying to say is, your discussion about "let them all fend for themselves" doesn't really fit here at all, because we as a nation moved beyond that decades ago.
Whether to move back to pensions, or improve 401Ks, that's an interesting question and worth discussing.
How about we just directly provide a safety net. The government can buy rent/food/medical if the market is cheaper or do it on it's own if not. (Force the market to compete with 'government inefficiency').
The common argument against this (to be clear: I think this argument is hogwash, but it should be mentioned) is that the government will then change laws to make it harder for market forces to compete. Which I find smacks of a certain kind of "but then we'll loooooose", but it is a concern, if generally low-impact.
Over the last hundred years, we've decided, as a nation, we want to do better than "let every individual fend for themselves". We weren't comfortable with the outcomes--old people eating pet food, dying for lack of heating in the winter, etc.
And there are certainly many low-paid workers who simply can't save anything substantial for any retirement, ever. Assuming everyone can sock away money to live on for when they're just too old to work is going to leave a lot of people out in the cold (possibly literally).
I guess what I'm trying to say is, your discussion about "let them all fend for themselves" doesn't really fit here at all, because we as a nation moved beyond that decades ago.
Whether to move back to pensions, or improve 401Ks, that's an interesting question and worth discussing.