An issue I always have with early retirement is whether it is morally acceptable. When retiring early from a skilled profession you are depriving society of a big contribution you could have given, that was also expected and invested in by society. Utilising a power dynamic by having more money and knowledge to capitalise on other people exacerbates this issue.
How are you dealing with this? Are you of the mindset that you do not owe anything to society? That it is completely fair, as you earned that money and there is a perfect market that trades all aspects in a meritocratic fashion (e.g., delayed consumption should be gratified this hard)? Or that you were not just lucky to have the talents to earn so much money?
It sounds like we both value the intangibles, but are still slightly disagreeing on what they mean in this discussion. Having said that, it’s your discussion, your question, and I’m just trying to answer in a way that adds value
I don’t mind how you’ve picked apart my examples, but you have to acknowledge it’s still primarily through economic analysis. Output, competition, and cost benefit analysis all imply an economic lense
The discussion is getting pretty long, so I’ll keep myself to these 5 points:
I don’t think everyone should grow their own produce. It comes across as a straw man (because I never said we should decentralise) and we always have to be careful not to say that what is good for one is good for all (see Idle Kantianism)
Non-economic benefits are devalued through economic analysis. My mental health is improved, it’s physical exercise, the nutrient value is likely higher, it contributes to a local ecosystem etc. I agree that none of these has much economic value
In the same way that economies of scale have efficiency value, specialisation and expertise in scientific and policy fields has efficiency value. Transitioning to research and policy simply because you have amassed capital will likely generate diminishing returns (even if you remain close to your industry/experience)
Government can and should allocate resources to important issues. If we require more resources for these goals we can raise taxes, keeping more people working for longer, and achieving some measure of additional economic contribution per person
A competitive society implies some other society against which we compete. Humanity has enough resources to raise the living standards of all. Why do we need to keep maximising productivity within separate societies if the problem is distributive?
I tried not to only focus on economic value in my counter arguments. I just wanted to use monetary value as a proxy for general value for society.
Regarding the transition to research and policy my argument would be that you will have more impact when taking a full time research position instead of retiring from the working world. I would still consider most research positions a part of the working world.
With a competitive society I actually meant that there are groups that will not support early retirees. These groups will dominate society after some time. An example might be China vs US. If many people in the US retire early, the US will not be able to compete and in the long run will stop existing together with all its values.