Comment by foxyv
6 days ago
In an attempt to steelman, you are saying:
"There is no moral justification for the government setting a retirement age, but they are able to. So it doesn't matter."
6 days ago
In an attempt to steelman, you are saying:
"There is no moral justification for the government setting a retirement age, but they are able to. So it doesn't matter."
The government doesn’t set the retirement age. You can retire whenever you want. There are no laws against a 50 year old retiring and living off his own savings, nor against a 70 year old continuing to work.
There is a minimum age to collect old age benefits from the government. The justification for that should be obvious.
The choice between working and starving to death is not a choice. If your savings have been taken by the government, then you don't have a choice.
The justification is to force people to work until they are too old to do so. Then steal whatever they have left with medical bills and price hikes on necessities.
> The justification is to force people to work until they are too old to do so.
Actually, the justification is to prevent old people from having to work. Retirement didn't really exist until the creation of pension systems in the late 19th century, and the modern social security system was a poverty alleviation measure introduced in the 1930s. Hell, social security was initially resented by older workers because of the cover it gave employers for firing them for being too old.
And if I was emperor, I would abolish payroll taxes and phase out Social Security. Unfortunately, we live in a democracy.
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But the CPF isn't represented as benefits from the government. It's represented and claimed to be your own savings that you have set aside. At gamed bond rates where the government skims off the top.
I'm just saying it is the answer.
To make an overly dramatic analogy, if you were kidnapped and asked why the kidnapper was able to hold you against your will, the answer is because they've chained you up and they have the gun, and so on. That's literally the answer to why. The fact that what they're doing is morally wrong is completely irrelevant.
I know why they are able, what I want people to think about is "Why." The kidnapper has a reason.