FIRE Buys You Class...Whether You Want it or Not

Pursing financial independence is an exercise in class mobility. No matter what economic class you start in, or what class you like to tell people you're a member of, when you have enough money to never have to work again, you're functionally wealthy: you're now part of the upper class.

Doing so at an age so young that it can barely be understood by friends and coworkers just underscores the point. 

You're not just wealthy, you've become part of this new class at an insultingly young age, and everyone around you would appreciate it if you would at least feel a little bit bad about it.

The Minnesota "Fuck You"

Now, there are people who will disagree with me. There are people who will say that FIRE can be achieved while maintaining one's position in the oh-so-coveted middle class, because you're still spending and living like a typical middle class family. 

These people are wrong. A wealthy person doesn't magically become middle class just because he climbs into a Toyota or cooks some meals at home.

Still, I understand why the newly rich cling to this fiction. While no one wants to be poor, the irony is that few people truly want to be seen as rich, either.

Why? Because everyone wants to be middle class.

To be middle class is to have enough, but not to be spoiled. To find dignity and meaning in your work, but not in an elitist way. 

To be middle class is to have community: to be part of the esteemed-but-never-defined class of workers that is responsible for America's greatest achievements. The middle class also receives a larger share of benefits than the lower class: tax subsidies for everything from our retirement plans to the interest on our homes, and political power at every level of government. And, most of all, the middle class enjoys status. The status that comes from being just right: right there in the middle.

The catch with FIRE is that it's essentially a movement that takes above-average earners, at least nominally from the middle class, and turns them into people who now qualify as upper class, whether they want to or not. 

The average middle class family can only retire from work late in life, if at all, and typically only with a reliance on taxpayer funded social welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare. By definition, early retirees are achieving this milestone, well, earlier. And often they do so without any reliance on Social Security: a common utterance among FIRE adherents is that anything they get from this program will be 'a bonus'.

And then there's, you know, the wealth that allows someone to be considered financially independent and to make work optional. One might call a person with that amount of wealth, "wealthy", as opposed to middle class.

But what does it matter the class we consider someone to be in? Isn't it a matter of semantics?

We spend a lot of time in personal finance focused on how we can change something about our money. How can we earn more of it? How can we invest it more optimally? Most of personal finance is centered on changing our money situation for the better.

But little to no attention is paid to how money, in turn, changes us. Are we better people for it? Even if we're better off overall, are we better in all respects? 

Or as Paul Piff, assistant professor of social psychology at UC Irvine asks, does money make us mean?

If we become wealthy, do we view our friends and family the same way? Do they view us the same way? 

Is our relationship with our neighbors and community actually improved when our finances are improved?

I try to ask myself these questions because I notice that a lot of the worldviews of the world's most wealthy people are fairly abhorrent. They seem consumed with matters of finance and support any policy that grows or protects their wealth. 

Becoming wealthy might provide a lot of advantages, but becoming a better person isn't necessarily one of them.

Joining the wealthy's ranks is perhaps not without risks. As we approach our financial independence figure, will I start embracing the viewpoints of the people I despise? Will I game the Medicaid system to get free healthcare for my kids, all the while railing about government waste and handouts? Will I cease caring about policies that help the less fortunate, in favor of policies that help me minimize the taxes I pay?

Hopefully, financial independence gives us the space and time to try to change the world for the better in a small way, in our little corner of the country. 

But it might change us, too.

*Photo is from mSeattle at Flickr Creative Commons.

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