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I agree with your general train of thought, I just think you are conflating earned wealth with unearned wealth. If I earned enough wealth via my work and time, to retire early I have (at least in theory), contributed my fair share of value to society, I've just done it early or more efficiently.

Now if everyone is retiring off inheritance, never having worked or created value, that is unearned and the whole thing stops working as you mention.

But let's say everyone is crazy work work efficient and retires at like 50, that still works because the same economic output is being created just earlier and by less people. So with the right tools and efficient work, yes everyone could retire earlier than retirement age, because someone else will be working towards their retirement.

If course in practice it is more nuanced, and not all jobs align with the value they create, but in general that is why I think earned wealth accumulated for early retirement is not unethical. Otherwise retiring at all would be unethical.

just my two sats, cheers

It's Moro! 7mo ago

i think retirement in general is a phenomena that is a bizarre modern phenomena, and that what has usually been the case in history is that you worked creating value for society, and then you were lucky enough to have kids or grandkids that took care of you in your older years. The idea that somehow people can have a retirement phase in life, which I still don't agree how they aren't one way or another pulling value from future generations via seignorage if they aren't creating new value (whether it's saved money or investments), for 20 or 30 years seems utterly unsustainable.

We don't agree, but that's ok :) I enjoy the convo

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code monkey 7mo ago

I appreciate the measured response as well. I'd zap you back but coinos is down. I guess my main question on that would be should people be punished for not having kids? Some people provide a lot of value in their early adult years, others don't. If no one retires, what's my incentive to not do only the bare minimum for my community, even when I'm at peak physical and cognitive health?

I do agree though that in recent generations "early retirement" has mostly been due to bad monetary policy bleeding wealth from the working class, and indeed the future. I just think if money worked as it should, it would be an accurate measure of your contribution and therefore a means to buy back your time.

I will say it's nice to have a civil disagreement online. Hope you have a nice week! (I assume based on our conversation we will both be working and trying to create some value 😄)