I've been working towards early retirement for a decade now, but I've never thought about this perspective before. Seeing it from a devil's advocate perspective

I've been working towards early retirement for a decade now, but I've never thought about this perspective before. Seeing it from a devil's advocate perspective, you could consider retirement a beautiful dream that people will tirelessly work towards until they are practically spent. Retirement age as the age where most people are not net contributors any longer, is a very different perspective than the age where most people have enough savings to live for the rest of their lives without working. Of course, there is no sinister cabal that deliberately shapes society in this direction, but there are certainly powers that would want (and probably try to) to pull society in this direction. If most people could choose how to spend their time (working productively, working on stuff that no one pays for, not working) by the age of 40, there would be a smaller supply of in-demand specialists. And that would mean higher salaries and less return on capital!