The provocative title correlates with the extremes discussed in Jacob Lund Fisker’s 2010 book Extreme Early Retirement. And by “extreme,” I don’t mean the author’s suggestions themselves, but rather some of the thought-provoking ideas he presents. Fisker’s book represents, according to him, a philosophy that he formulated long before the current waves of frugality, FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), and minimalism took off (by the way, I had written about living outside of consumerism back in 2007). Instead of just preaching, Fisker actually practiced what he preached. On an average income, he saved 75% of his net salary, learned how to live with little, and then stopped working—or worked only intermittently. One could also distill this down to the well-known wisdom that you don’t get rich by earning a lot, but by saving as much as possible.
This will not be a short blog post, sorry, because such a philosophy cannot be summed up in 150 words.
Reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Fisker starts with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. To remind you (a better summary is certainly provided on Wikipedia): In a cave, people are imprisoned and have spent their entire lives shackled. They can only look at a wall; they cannot see their fellow prisoners or themselves, and they cannot see the exit behind them. On the wall, they see shadows cast by a fire burning between them and the exit. The shadows that the prisoners see become their reality, and they try to make sense of them.
If someone manages to escape the cave, they would first have to adjust to the daylight, which would be painful, but after a period of adjustment, they would no longer want to return to their old life. According to Socrates, the cave represents the sensory world that people typically perceive as normal. The ascent out of the cave represents the transition from the world of fleeting sensory objects to the idea of the Good, enabling rational action. For Fisker, those who are wage slaves and trapped in their culture are the prisoners of the cave, and by “wage slaves,” he means those who are dependent on a salary. They may switch jobs, but they cannot escape the labor market itself, and like the prisoners, they lack the imagination to leave, as they are focused on the wall.
The wall does not show who they are, but what they own. You see someone driving a Mercedes convertible, but not the debts they incurred or the stress that comes with it. Everyone looks busy, because that’s important, just as it’s important to take on debt, since the most successful people are those with the best credit scores. They are better at getting into debt than others. You work and pay off debts, a cycle known as “earning a living,” yet in reality, you have no time for actual life. The chains represent obligations and debt, but mostly the lack of imagination that other possibilities exist. The best prisons are those without visible bars. Either you win the lottery or earn enough to become financially independent, according to the perception of the prisoners. And if things aren’t going well mentally, you buy yourself something nice and go shopping.
How Do You Escape the Cave?
The core question in Fisker’s book is how to escape the money-earning-and-buying cycle and lead a more interesting life. For example, by learning a skill that saves you from hiring a service, building things yourself, earning money in alternative ways, and interacting with people.
Modern wage slaves, according to Fisker, live lives of material excess. They are consumers with multiple TVs, several streaming services, kitchen appliances, gadgets, phone contracts, vacations, and sometimes even time to play with their toys. It’s become incredibly easy to spend money. Instead of opening a can with a cheap can opener in 30 seconds, we work for 30 minutes to afford a designer can opener that does the job in 30 seconds. Many things that we used to do ourselves have become so distorted that we buy gadgets or services to do them for us. This is convenient, because, as Fisker points out, we’re too busy with the work that we need to do in order to pay for all of this. This is the first thing that must change. Once you can do things yourself, you no longer have to depend on someone else to do them for you. But this only works if you earn enough money. Once you lose your job, you’re lost.
The second step is questioning your consumption. “What do you do for a living, and what brands do you buy to express yourself?” is a question from Fisker’s book. From my own experience, it’s almost impossible to buy a black cardigan that doesn’t have a huge BOSS, Joop, or some other brand logo on it. These brands cost extra, but we get loans so we can spend even more money, because consumption is equated with success. If a new iPhone has only 3 percent more features, it gets bought, and the old one ends up in the trash (fortunately, Fisker’s logic here is not entirely accurate, because most iPhones and other phones are then resold to someone who has no problem with a used phone). But he is right that many perfectly functional things end up in the trash just because they are no longer fashionable (which reminds me again of the Rams shelf, which still looks modern after 60 years).
What’s worse, according to Fisker, is when you finance your consumption with credit. Then you are not only a wage slave, but also a debtor. You pay off a house or an apartment for 30 years (I find this exaggerated in Fisker’s book because not everyone does that), save for retirement, and then try to make up for the lost years and ruined health in the final years of life. You see how questionable consumer loans are in the following advertisement I saw yesterday in Hamburg: