I've been reading the great comments on this thread (the long one about immigrants is amazing--super informative and well-written), and also reading more and more blog posts from MMM. I've come to this conclusion:
I've noticed that many readers of the blog have, here and there, already commented on the same thing I posted about when I started this: MMM isn't very nuanced about the possibility of ambiguity in his philosophy. He doesn't tend to acknowledge the idea of privilege; how there is more to what he calls "financial independence" than just the power of our own ability to control our destiny through hard work and discipline.
The Horatio Alger, bootstrapping approach is incredibly powerful because it puts you back in the driver's seat of your personal wealth. There's a lot to that. Avoiding a victim mindset is a key component to success in life.
I can tell I'm going to be a devotee of MMM's blog and probably come to the forums often. It was tailor made for my personality, upbringing, class, and situation in life. I'm ok with a lack of nuance--the blog has great ideas and is freakin' entertaining. BUT it's not the only way of looking at wealth.
Personally, my husband's and my philosophy towards our finances shares many similarities with MMM's, but has a different ultimate alignment. As fairly devout Christians, we see ourselves as managing money that doesn't belong to us. Using the money that passes through our hands as responsibly as possible in order to benefit as many people as we can is critical to our worldview.
We don't have a lot of interest in retiring early--both of us view our jobs as vocations that we have been called to; we spent a lot of time and money in order to train for these vocations, and we plan on continuing in them as long as we are able. We DO love the idea of working in a different capacity that would pay less or not at all, such as being overseas missionaries.
So this is a different end-goal of wealth--just as an immigrant feels responsible to send back money to the enormous community that played a role in his ability to make more money, we feel responsible to give money in a way that acknowledges the privilege of our being in a (rarified when viewed from the understanding of most of the world's population) position of easily being able to acquire it.
My husband's and my absolute favorite book on the subject of wealth building and giving is Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster. In fact, seeing this book on my husband's bookshelf when we were dating is one of the big factors of me knowing I wanted to marry him. :)