You guys stay up late! There are a lot of comments, and I can’t respond to all of them, but I will try and respond to some general themes.
First on my motivation. I was recently goaded into posting this by some comments on the thread referenced by CFB, but obviously this has been on my mind for some time. A couple people in this thread commented that this is so obvious why would I bother writing it, but in that other thread I was challenged, and so here we are. Yes, this is somewhat motivated by my personal experience. I am not retired, but do plan on leaving my current job well before age 50, despite the fact that I have more obligations than most others here. I’ve wrestled with how to balance my obligations, my willingness to take on new obligations, and my own self-interest. I hang around here (and this is the only internet forum I frequent) because, despite my concerns about the ethics, there is a lot of stuff here I do find useful. While reality is much more complicated than my posts, long as they are, they are not purely rhetorical devices to stimulate discussion. I hope they do stimulate discussion and thought, but I stand by them as something close to what I believe to be true.
There have been a couple comments along the lines that selfishness is good, all actions are selfish, people should ignore the opinions of others, or that there are no true societal obligations. I can’t see that there is any evidence behind these statements (short of fiction like Rand or Heinlein), and I don’t know if you can really argue against axioms. I’ll try a couple quick things: saying “all actions are selfish” (even if technically correct – which I dispute) reduces the word to meaninglessness. Social contracts exist for a reason. They are not perfect, some may even be unfortunate, but they are not arbitrary. Parents are obligated to take care of their children. Children are obligated (socially if not legally) to take care of their parents. And so on. Even the strange worlds of Heinlein and Rand have societal obligations – just not ones as well developed or grounded in reality as our own. Capitalism is good because it uses our natural selfishness to function. This does not imply that selfishness is good because it helps capitalism function.
The idea occasionally is put forth that giving up your job is good because someone else is then allowed to take it. The fallacy here is that we do not have a fixed number of jobs in our society or even a fixed number of good jobs. Also people confuse consuming with contributing. You contribute by producing.
Some have pointed out that people’s reactions to early retirement are driven purely by envy and have nothing to do with the stuff I’m talking about here. There are certainly other reasons why people don’t like the idea of early retirement. Envy is one. A unhealthy opinion of wealth might be another. The way the ER’s success makes someone else’s spendthrift choices look foolish, or destroys the ways they have rationalized their own behavior is yet another. Still, many people do still believe in the work ethic, not just as a rationalization for baser emotions, but for good reason. Some people “ER” having never worked at all. I know a family that survives on welfare in the woods of Montana. Their parents are mortified – not envious. This is not the same thing as people around here, but it illustrates what I’m talking about.
There have been a couple comments that, while ER is self interested, it is not detrimental to others, and therefore not selfish. I tried to address this before, and it is not clear if you are disagreeing with me, or I simply didn’t make myself clear. ER is detrimental to others both directly and obliquely. It is not hugely detrimental, it is not evil, but it is detrimental. We all depend on the work of others, and by dropping out of society you are not holding up your end of the bargain. In our society, allowances are made for people like police, firefighters, and the military. There is a reason why; those jobs have always been assumed to be too demanding for a lifetime of service. Whether that is true today, or applies to the desk-bound versions, is another story, but we have that tradition.
No one should be forced to work, and no one is expected to work beyond their ability. But when someone is perfectly able to work, and they simply chose not to do so, then people disapprove, and for good reason.
??
![:-\](https://www.early-retirement.org/sk/forums/images/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
