Pensions make a lot of sense mathematically. If I personally fund my retirement I have to save enough for the "worst" case scenario of living many years longer than average. A pension on the other hand only has to invest enough for the average lifespan because the person who dies a week before retirement and collects nothing helps fund the person who lives to be 105.
State pensions are in trouble because govt pensions are allowed to assume overly optimistic rates of return.
Mandatory safety net/insurance policies make sense because what we know from experience is that if you don't have a mandated program, some people will blow it off. And as long as we don't have the political will to let them die on the street alone in poverty, it'll be very expensive to try pick up the pieces of the mess once they hit the safety net. Especially if that's something like hitting the ER needing tens of thousands of treatment to stabilize, before just getting kicked back out to the street. Or wasting people's time in the ER without medical need because the ER has heating and a bed and the cold winter street doesn't.
Not everybody has family to fall back on in retirement, but we still don't want to let them simply die. So the money has to be given somewhere.
I fully agree with your statement, but would also like to point to the darker side of the coin, where some people managing the mandatory pension fund will probably make some nice amount of money out of it.
It sounds reasonable in theory to collectivize this stuff, but in practice the programs all run out of money. Politicians always over promise. This happens over and over again all over the world.
I see no real alternative to freedom here. Let people make their own choices. Over the long term you can't really conjure up better investment returns and better retirements for people by decree. The wealth has to be there.
State pensions are in trouble because govt pensions are allowed to assume overly optimistic rates of return.