You're not wrong. The retirement situation (excuse my french) is seriously fucked through a combination of events [1] [2] [3]. Pensions were great, because you couldn't ransack them as a participant. Social security is great because you can't cash it out. Most Americans can't or don't save enough for retirement (as humans, we suck at planning for the future, at least most of us), and a large proportion if the retired population lives on and is kept out of poverty by Social Security [4]. Pensions could have been sustainable with more realistic return assumptions, greater contributions from plan participants, and strong firewalls between the corporate sponsor and the plan. Instead, 401ks were sold to everyone and things turned out about how you'd expect.

With that said, I think making tax advantaged accounts more accessible to your average person is a net win, even if we have a lot of work left to do to encourage good long term financial planning and behavior. Some policy I've been modeling is if you take an early distribution from a retirement account, the penalty goes towards your social security benefit. You still want to discourage folks from touching retirement savings, but that also requires more robust social safety nets so there are fewer events when citizens are financially bleeding out in the snow and need to tap those accounts.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/01/theres-a-retirement-crisis-i...

[2] https://www.epi.org/publication/retirement-in-america/

[3] http://www.mybudget360.com/pension-death-percent-of-american...

[4] https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-securit...