Agreed.
It's self-evidently true that the profit incentive drives people to do up to these four things, the first three being beneficial and the last requiring laws and regulations to mitigate:
- People are more creative in order to make more money. Come up with a good idea and you can make bank on it
- People are more efficient in order to make more money. Streamline production or reduce overhead and profits go up.
- People are more industrious in order to make more money. Get an education. Work full time. Open a new branch of your business.
- People will harm and cheat others in order to make more money.
The ideal approach in my opinion is to capitalize on the positive aspects of the first three behaviors, outlaw and penalize the fourth, and incorporate elements of socialism to underpin infrastructure, foster human development, and assist those facing misfortune.
You: How much wealth is too much? What is the number?
Me: How much money does anybody need? Whatever the number, more than that is greed
You: That is the question for you to answer.
I did answer it.
Maybe you meant for me personally and specifically. We have enough money to sustain our current lifestyle until we die, and it's not because we're obscenely wealthy, but because we are debt-free and live humbly in an inexpensive economy that costs less to live in than our income, which is just interest income and Social Security, but that means that our savings grow every year.
I retired fifteen years ago because I thought I could, so why go on working? Why work for money that you don't need? The trick is to have the ability to say, "I have enough."
What I mean by living humbly is that we drive a 2001 vehicle. I almost never buy clothes. We don't go to bars. We're done travelling. Doctors, vets, and medications are much less expensive here. A nice dinner for two here is well under $50 USD including a generous tip. Lunch for two today was 380 pesos - about $19 USD before tip, and that included a margarita.
This is all we need. We could spend more, but why? On what? A new car? This one is still running just fine.