That's really not the only thing that can improve society. Singapore, as you note, improved without it. Well, many places have.
You may not like the consequences that come about from a quasi-fascistic techno-reactionary government, which is fine. On the other hand, there are benefits to such systems. If Amazon owned Seattle, do you think there would be such filth and homeless squalor throughout the city? Or the daily opioid deaths on our streets. Would Bezos be okay with that? How about our traffic? It is funny to me that a city with perhaps the top logistics talent and management in the world has an ineffectual transportation system due in part to the challenges of collective action and the biases in underfunding public goods endemic and researched in the study of the interaction between representative government, taxation, and investment.
Don't misinterpret me as advocating for that world, radical change tends to do more harm than good. But there is nothing wrong with holding a clear view of why people find it an enticing proposition. It's a little intellectually dismissive to just call it some base fetishization or fantasy. Or at least that's how I interpreted your comment, perhaps my interpretation was uncharitable.