There is no point at which those who accumulate money become satisfied.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 6th May 2013.
I never did anything for money. I never set money as a goal. It was a result.(1) So says Bob Diamond, formerly the chief executive of Barclays. In doing so he lays waste to the justification his bank and others (and their innumerable apologists in government and the media) have advanced for surreal levels of remuneration: to incentivise hard work and talent. Prestige, power, a sense of purpose: these are incentives enough.
Others of his class Bernie Ecclestone and Jeroen van der Veer (the former chief executive of Shell) for example say the same(2,3). The capture of so much wealth by the executive class performs no useful function. What the very rich appear to value is relative income. If executives were all paid 5% of current levels, competition between them (a questionable virtue anyway) would be no less fierce. As the immensely rich HL Hunt commented several decades ago, money is just a way of keeping score.
The desire for advancement along this scale appears to be insatiable. In March Forbes magazine published an article about Prince Alwaleed, who, like other Saudi princes, doubtless owes his fortune to nothing but hard work and enterprise. According to one of the princes former employees, the Forbes global rich list is how he wants the world to judge his success or his stature.(4) The result is a quarter-century of intermittent lobbying, cajoling and threatening when it comes to his net worth listing. In 2006, the researcher responsible for calculating his wealth writes, when Forbes estimated that the prince was actually worth $7 billion less than he said he was, he called me at home the day after the list was released, sounding nearly in tears. What do you want? he pleaded, offering up his private banker in Switzerland. Tell me what you need.
Never mind that he has his own 747, in which he sits on a throne during flights. Never mind that his main palace has 420 rooms. Never mind that he possesses his own private amusement park and zoo and, he claims, $700 million worth of jewels. Never mind that hes the richest man in the Arab world, valued by Forbes at $20bn, and has watched his wealth increase by $2bn in the past year(5). None of this is enough. There is no place of arrival, no happy landing, even in a private jumbo jet. The politics of envy are never keener than among the very rich.
http://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/06/enough-already/
liberal N proud
(60,339 posts)RainDog
(28,784 posts)M Kitt
(208 posts)Agreed with the premise posted above, there's no limit to greed.
Related to that, the linked comment was posted on the "Atheist/Agnostic" group and doesn't slam all religion, just pretenders who're in it for money. Or more accurately rants about those who manipulate "Devout" followers for monetary or political gain.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/123015084
All of that aside, you've correctly stated that pursuit of wealth likely falls within the OCD range, greed is insatiable and often amounts to simple competitive behavior. The moneygrubbers won't be satisfied until their competition has fallen, and there's always someone higher up on the monetary ladder.
Happiness really can't be bought, and reasonable comfort should suffice
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)It's what capitalism promotes. Everything becomes an object based on it's monetary value and nothing has value beyond what the market assigns.