How Much Money Is Enough?
A thought experiment can lead the way.
Diogenes the Cynic, it won’t surprise you to know, didn’t much like people. He was famed for carrying his lantern through the streets of Athens, during broad daylight, in a vain and endless search for an “honest man.”
His point is well taken. It can be notoriously difficult to find people’s true opinions on certain subjects. We’re all affected by prejudices and conflicted interests, which makes it hard to devise questions for political surveys or psychology studies that won’t taint the results.
I once asked my friend what amount of money he thought should be ‘enough’ for any single person. He returned me an arbitrary, eight-figure number, and I suggested a lower arbitrary number of my own. We were at a stalemate. While we agreed broadly that there is indeed such a thing as being excessively wealthy, we couldn’t agree on where that line should be drawn.
One’s response to this question comes down to one’s political philosophy. A libertarian would say that you’re entitled to keep all the fruits of your labour as a matter of principle, meaning no one has the right to cap the amount of money you…
