> Can we trade iPhones and TVs for retiring at 40, with healthcare, housing, and food for life?

No, because we don’t have enough people younger than 40 to support half the population being retired, let alone the productivity loss from the absence of later career workers, nor the loss of capital and tax income from those age groups. The only alternative would be autonomous robots and they require the skill and capital those age groups provide and autonomous robots are way harder than iPhones and TVs!

There is this, https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... which is pretty similar. And yes, I am well aware not everyone can achieve this. Families are expensive, eating out with friends is expensive, not everyone makes $X per year.

But still, some people live on as little as possible and invest in their retirement aggressively. I have some friends who are into this, they drive that same shitty car from college, live with roommates, cook everything at home, etc. They are content living with that knowing they are investing for retirement in their 40s.

Well yes - if you are willing to adopt a standard of living from 100 years ago, then you can probably easily afford it with modest savings at age 40 or even less. I'm talking multi-generation homes in a not-very-urban area, maybe a car, and you have to fix a bunch of stuff yourself.

If you wish to retire on the median standard of living from 2024, well, that's gonna cost median wages from 2024. If you want to retire on your standard of living, well, you'll need 40 years of your income to last you till 80. That's hard to do.

The median standard of living nowadays is lightyears ahead of the median standard of living from 100, 200, etc years ago. That's almost all productivity increases spread around to all of us.

I mean, if you work in tech (high wages), live somewhere not america (free healthcare), are willing to live somewhere not ostentatious, the answer is almost certainly yes.

There is a whole movement around it called FIRE.

I hope it was clear that an iphone was just an example. But your examples are better. Healthcare and education is more accessible and better than it was in the 1920s or 30s by a long shot. It's not even comparable.

And very few people had pensions back then either. The standard 401k is like a money printer compared to options back then. There certainly were times when pensions were more widespread. But I don't think if you zoom out to 50-100-200 year timelines, that healthcare, education, and retirement security are even comparable.