FIRE (financial independence, retire early) and the history of financial self-help: Cultures of capitalism in Sweden c. 1875-2025

The purpose of the proposed project is to understand the rationales, practices and possible implications of the growing – but scholarly unexplored – FIRE movement in Sweden and place them into a longer historical development of financial self-help in industrial capitalism.

The basic idea of FIRE is to live extremely frugally for some years and invest all income surplus in the stock market with the goal of stop working at the age 40 and live the rest of your life off capital income.

It seemingly results in a paradoxical moral economy of resisting cornerstones of capitalist society – salaried work, debt and consumption – while consenting to the power of the financial markets and relying completely on continued capital growth.The project incorporates two studies that each will result in an international peer-reviewed article.

Study 1, “The FIRE movement as lived experience, mediated narrative and commercial interest c. 2000-2025”, is both a phenomenological enquiry into the rationales and practices of Swedish followers (and dropouts), and a critical analysis of circulating narratives and commercial stakeholders. Sources consist of interviews, books and press material.

Study 2, “Motives and practices of financial self-help from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century", analyzes a series of educational books and leaflets on financial success for the individual. The last project year will be spent compiling the results into a monograph in Swedish.