As for why - the same reason why they get to decide what side of the road you drive on and what laws you follow. They rule the patch of land you were born on, and if you don't like it you can either participate in the system (assuming it's a democracy) or leave.
The real question is why governments insist on euphemistic names ("forced savings") that imply the opposite of the reality of the programs. And why people put up with such financial repression schemes. The answer to the first question is to keep people from being too upset too suddenly, too many all at once. The answer to the latter is that the people usually don't get a say in these things.
For Singapore this program probably makes a great deal of sense since Singapore is singularly vulnerable given its location in the world. To build what they did they probably needed these sorts of policies. I suspect most Singaporeans don't mind all that much, though I don't know. We would very much mind this sort of thing here in the U.S. though!
And the reason it decides that, apart from "because it can", is because many societies have seen what happens when it's left to individuals to take care of this, and they fuck it up in massive numbers, and the outcome of that then fucks up society.
It sounds to me like we have built a system to exploit people as much as possible. Treating them like farm animals.
How does socializing work if there are insufficient workers relative to non workers? I.e. the supply of food/shelter/medical care is insufficient to meet the demand?
> Your duty as a citizen is to work and build your nation
What about the duty of the trust fund babies and idle wealthy? What about the duty of the capital owners? Why is the retirement age going up instead of down as productivity increases?
In the case of 401(k)s/DC plans and private pensions/DB plans, the government allowed savings without "confiscation," i.e. immediate taxation. They gave us the benefit of deferred taxation if you wait until retirement age.
The current trajectory makes my question a lot of things, including this whole "government pays back that service with benefits" as it will be some time before I ever see a penny of SSI.
A lot of our taxes in this country seem like a giant waste or are grossly inefficient at best.
It's our duty to elect people who use tax dollars wisely and to vote out officials who neglect their responsibility to the people and use tax money to enrich themselves and anyone else willing to bribe them. Our government is filled with grifters because we've failed to hold them meaningfully accountable for robbing us and failing to provide the benefits we're funding.
Many of the grifters in government have been working hard to make it difficult to hold them accountable. They disenfranchise voters, they keep us afraid and our futures uncertain, they collude against efforts to reform the system they've established for their own benefit.
Government was never going to just let us have "liberty and justice for all" the job was always on "we the people" to insist on it. We can't just pay taxes and expect everything to work out. We have to use the democracy we have to force the government to work for us and not just for themselves. If we've reached a point where that's no longer possible then it's our duty to "refresh the tree of liberty" until we have a government that works for us.
You might as well ask similar questions about most basic laws and concepts behind how western societies work.
There's maybe a few hundred people worldwide who could casually drop a proper answer to your question while casually browsing hn.
I believe it'd be more fair to start answering your own question to show how far you are in your intellectual journey on that topic.
Now, why does the government get to decide when I retire with my own money?
