Retirement, Wealth, and Soul

Retirement
"Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. Previously, low life expectancy and the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death. Germany was the first country to introduce retirement, in 1880." (Wikipedia)

I was trained from a young age to believe planning for retirement was the real heart of wisdom. I read books on financial planning and investing, went to seminars, and, as soon as I turned 18, began trading stocks. I was out to make a fortune. The idea of investing in stocks or mutual funds sounds great: you make your money work for you. But is your money spending its mornings at the gym working out and eating a balanced diet so it can grow? The hard work that goes into our growing wealth is being done by someone somewhere, and it often has a high cost that we don't see. Most of the corporations "growing" our wealth are operating in countries where labor is cheap and environmental and labor laws are lax. Most of the people doing the grunt work to create our wealth are far too poor to consider investing in a 401K. They are living hand to mouth and the cut-throat capitalism that's a hallmark of our industrial economy is destroying the social and biological fabric of their communities even faster than its destroyed ours. 

At 22, seeking safer and more conscientious investments, I began putting my money in socially responsible mutual funds. But I've been steadily losing faith in this financial system and its insistence that retirement is the golden end of the road. My "socially responsible" mutual funds with Calvert tout Harley Davidson as their top company for corporate responsibility. To me, Harley Davidson looks like a company that sells a ridiculous, macho image making products that are noisy, polluting, and entirely dependent on the oil economy. Is that socially responsible? This weekend a local friend of mine who works for a mutual fund company told me, "Since the 2008 financial crisis we've seen what happens to the house of cards when a couple are pulled out from the bottom. In 30 years our global financial system will in no way resemble what it is today. It's completely unsustainable. The only reason I work in this industry is to try to ensure that the companies we're investing in are "socially responsible." But the whole system is unsustainable and we need something completely different." He also told me he wouldn't trust his money in mutual funds.

I don't believe people need to be doing hard manual labor in their later years or that Wal-Mart's front doors are the only logical place for older people to be useful. My critique  is of our industrial economy and how it exploits and separates us from our families, friends, and the earth. Finance writer Helaine Olen says many older people are retiring at age 60 or 65 with only $25,000 to carry them to the end of their lives. Is that because they're foolish and wasteful, or because this financial system is failing massively? With 50% of people in the US living paycheck to paycheck, I'm leaning toward the latter. 

I don't want to be 75 and without any resources to get me through to the end of my life. I also don't want to believe that I need to invest my time, energy, and money into jobs and systems that rely on violence to produce goods and wealth. Longevity is in my genes and, with medical treatment advancing as it is, I suspect I could live as long as my Great Grandma Langwell, who celebrated her 100th birthday last August. She lives in Middlebury, Indiana on a property where five generations of her family still reside. It's not paradise but it's better than any nursing home. Grandma lives in her own little house, her memory is pristine, and she finds meaning in the relationships with her family that she sees and that supports her every day. That model of growing old sounds much more appealing to me than the extreme independence that marks modern US culture from cradle to grave. I don't want to have so much money that I don't need people.

This concept of retirement is only 130 years old, and I suspect that in many small villages around the world it's still not in the lexicon. How did this great shift in growing old come about? Are we better off now? Interdependence and cooperation used to be the only way people could survive and I'm sure that brought plenty of challenges of which I'm naively unaware. Wendell Berry, speaking about good men, says, "...[His] rewards are not deferred until "retirement," but arrive seasonally and daily out of the details of the life of his place..." (The Unforeseen Wilderness). And in "What are People For?" he says, "In a country that puts an absolute premium on labor saving, short work days, and retirement  why should there by any surprise at permanence of unemployment and welfare dependency? Those are only different names for our national ambitions."

Wealth
Storing up treasure on earth certainly appeals to me and my entrepreneurial streak, but it's contrary to what I believe we ought to be doing. With that said, I also believe it's prudent to save. I don't know where to draw the line between savings and a fortune and I don't know where to save money when most banks are involved in funding projects that I'd prefer not be funded. I would like to own land with friends, grow our own food, and create multigenerational community that always has space for people to grow old, contribute in meaningful ways, and receive the care and support they need. I want interdependence with friends and family so we don't have to depend on the exploitative and unpredictable global economy to take care of us in old age. I want investments I can see, touch, love, taste, and smell. I want to invest in this place and make it better for future generations.

My maternal grandmother, Nancy Kline, tells the story of how her parents took care of her grandparents in their old age: "When Grandpa and Grandma Lienhart got too old to farm, they moved into our two-bedroom farmhouse with my folks and the four of us kids. I still don't know where all those people slept, but we made it work." That sounds hard, but it doesn't sound like hell. In fact, it sounds right. It doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it sounds like real wealth. Young people and old people stand to gain a lot from living near one another. We can remind each other of our common history and humanity, sharing the vitality and memory that communities need to survive. 

Soul
I'm still influenced by my culture of extreme independence and a lifestyle that encourages me to be accountable to no one. But I believe that's a big part of what got us into the mess we're in now. There is little love, joy, or soul in that way of life. Again I turn to Wendell Berry for wisdom: "Just as the public economy encourages people to spend money and waste the world, so the public sexual code encourages people to be spendthrifts and squanderers of sex. The basis of true community and household economy, on the other hand, is thrift." (Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community). I appreciate Berry's soulful approach to community, economy, and it's application even to sexuality. In his book, "Care of the Soul," Thomas Moore also offers wisdom on how we relate to the past in our age of unrelenting modernity, "Once we shift our attention to care for the soul rather than the ego, we have a way out of the bias of modernism, of living only for the day [or for the future]. A soul sensibility awakens an appreciation for old ways and ancient wisdom...(411). 

What To Do

• A study by Michael Norton, associate professor at Harvard Business School, found that money can indeed buy us happiness, as long as we're spending it on other people. Spending money on ourselves seems to have little impact on our happiness. 
• Common Good Bank's rCredits are a new form of local currency being introduced in Massachusetts. After the kinks are worked out of this trial run, the rCredits are expected to be available in test cities like Goshen! This bank will only invest in projects chosen by its community members and it's project advisory board has a sub-committee called, "Non-profits, Spirit, and Society." That sounds like a bank with soul. Keep an eye out for them in the local news. 
• CDs: Certificates of Deposit are safe ways to invest money (preferably in locally, cooperatively run institutions) that offer sustainable rates of return. Instead of the 9% promised by mutual funds in the industrial economy, CDs typically offer around a 1% rate of return. You're not going to get rich that way, but I hope we're beginning to see that getting rich is not the point. The point is community, sustainability, uplifting lives and
• Invest in your community! Investing in community projects, local businesses, and especially local food is a great way to use your money and invest in the future of your place. If you're looking for a bigger, long-term investment,  land is something that is inherently valuable. It's real. You can touch it. There are some ethical questions to consider in our ownership of land and how that affects communities, but that's for another entry.