Funny how 401ks can make members of the American public think the stock market is really about them. In capitalism, assets follow a Pareto distribution. A small minority hold the majority of assets.
I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions:
"Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable retirement, and then draw said money out on a regular basis? What percentage of the population can be supported thus? What is to be said to that percentage whose participation would exceed the capacity of existing financial markets?"
Poor people in the US live like gods compared to people living in 3rd world jungles, but they complain just as much if not more.
So you quickly realize that "comfortable" is a relative term, and envy poisons any honest measure of "comfort".
May have been true once upon a time, but true no longer.
The fentanyl addicts drying in the Sun on Tenderloin's sidewalks beg to differ. What a ridiculous statement. There is less poverty in the US, but extreme poverty isn't any easier here.
Also you missed the entire point of the comment you responded to.
No one knows what the end game of capitalism looks like, because we landed on the system because it is largely self-regulating and has worked well for carrying society forwards for the last 400ish years. Everything else has done poorly and kind of sucked.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure if we've truly seen an endgame socialist policy. Captialism seems to turn into imperialism and break that up before seeing the endgame there.
So the reason you haven’t gotten an answer is because your question doesn’t make much sense.
I think the more salient question is how many people could the market support if everyone was consuming and not producing.
Not producing as in the goods and services that people want such as clean toilets and food and nursing home care. Or not producing the kids who will go on to produce the aforementioned goods and services.
This is mostly incorrect.
A 401k in the United States is a tax-advantaged investment account. You can buy shares of individual companies, you can purchase index funds, you can leave it there as cash, buy gold, or just about anything you want or you'd expect to be able to purchase using a brokerage account. Depending on the route you take (Roth or Traditional) you can realize tax savings now or at a later point. 401k Accounts are programs offered by your employer as well [1].
One of the many reasons the OP's question doesn't make sense is because not every country in the world has a 401k program.
[1] There are other programs for individual owners or for those who have an employer that does not offer a 401k.
The only pure advantage is employer matching if you have it and stay employed long enough for it to vest.
So not exactly a necessity to build wealth.
It is a self correcting problem. If the yields are too low people can spend it on hookers and blow before dropping it into a money shredder. The yield shouldn't drop much below the premium for the time preference of money.
Any investment alternative, like a private or public pension, works under the same principle. Even traditional retirement plans depended on investing in having lots of kids to take care of you in old age.
Apparently almost half of workers are not participating in such: https://pensionrights.org/resource/how-many-american-workers...
There is still an element of real economic growth underlying the stock market, but passive investing, derivatives and market manipulation have largely decoupled the stock market from the actual economy. At least that's my opinion.
I think the answer to your question would be yes IF: * The world economy keeps growing * There is a fair distribution of the return on the world economy (which there isn't)
Taxpayer funded DB pensions are a little bit better, since they offer outsized benefits due to being able to hose future taxpayers.
To stick some concrete numbers on this, combined the world's billionaires have about $15 trillion dollars worth of assets. Combined the world's retirement funds have about $60-$70 trillion dollars worth of assets.
What's driving the major disconnect is the generational wealth divide. Boomers have loads of wealth, housing, their pension funds, non-pension investments. Millenials, not so much. (Obviously, this is in part because wealth builds up during one's life, though the divide is stronger than merely that effect)
If you're a boomer, all this politics that promotes the stock market over the material economy is fucking great. Tech lays off another 16 billion people? Stonks go to the moon, and maybe you'll collect a nice fat severance package on your way out of your last job. If you're young though, it's a nightmare.
It's quite recent that the political balance has changed; Biden fumbled the 2024 election in no small part because of his "But the stock market is good, why are you mad?" stance that had been ol' reliable for the decades prior.
Do you have any numbers on this? Age is a pretty important part of the GINI index. People underestimate the age effect when discussing inequality.
Perhaps there is issue with shareholder voting, because the funds largely handle that, but generally they are focused on long term growth and stability, and vote accordingly. I mean, then thing you are paying them to do is ensure you have a good retirement fund, if nothing else.