Greed Is An Addiction, And The Top 1% Are Hooked
It’s been the source of anger for many and it’s made the headlines of newspapers: the rich have gotten richer during this pandemic, whilst the rest of the world have suffered unemployment and business closures, furlough schemes and financial uncertainty.
The news story that sparked the most debate around the worlds richest, was when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hit the headlines. During a pandemic that has paved way for recession and mass redundancies, Bezos broke records and became worth $200 billion. With that great amount of wealth comes the power to pretty much change the world — so, why doesn’t he?
A Little Perspective
It’s harder than you think to imagine the sheer size of 200 billion, so let me put it into perspective for you: if you were lucky enough to be able to save $100,000 a year, it would take you 2 million years to reach $200 billion. With $200 billion, you could give every man, woman and child in Canada $5,555.56 (£4,281.31) — they have a population of 37 million people.
Of course, the Amazon giant isn’t the only rich person in the world: let’s have a look at the rest.
“In under three years, just 2,189 people have earned more wealth than 50% of America.”
According to Forbes, this July, the total wealth of the worlds 2,189 billionaires broke records: reaching $10.2 trillion (£7.8 trillion) in late July. The last record was $8.9 trillion (£6.8 trillion) at the end of 2017.
To put that into an even closer perspective: the bottom 50% of America’s earners — that’s roughly around 160 million people, collectively have a household wealth of $2.1 trillion. (Not-so-fun fact: that’s only 1.9% of household wealth in the U.S., while the richest 1% of the States own 30.4% of it).
So, in under three years, just 2,189 people have increased their wealth by more than what 50% of the U.S. earns in just a year.
To make matters worse: the United Nations say that world hunger would cost an average of $30 billion a year to end. That is merely pennies compared to what these billionaires are making.
So, if it’s so easy, why don’t they just…do it? Why do they hoard money that will take lifetimes to spend? When it is so disposable to people like them, who earn hundreds of thousands every minute?
What if their greed is an addiction?
Getting To The Root of Things.
What connects various addictions is one underlying fact: enough is never enough. People suffering with addiction will constantly seek more of the ‘drug’ of their choice in order to get satisfaction. The need for a high that follows obtaining what they think they need, is constantly raised. They constantly need more.
Leon F Seltzer, a clinical psychologist and author of Paradoxical Strategies in Psychotherapy wrote in Psychology Today that addiction could be why billionaires, though already earning a huge amount of wealth, continually chase every financial opportunity in their way. Why we have centi-billionaires who are still getting richer. It’s why we see single companies own great amounts of the industry it’s in, like Disney, who owns more than a third of the film industry, having bought Marvel, Star Wars, 2oth Century Fox, and many more franchises.
Amazon is the same— the company is constantly growing: it’s chased the success of Netflix with Amazon Prime Video, and the success of Youtube with it’s own streaming service, Twitch.
Each time you receive money, a cheque, or sign a new business deal, you likely receive a release of dopamine. So it isn’t surprising that these giants are seeking out hit after hit.
Seltzer writes: ‘in general, their “money high” has to do not just with the feelings of fiscal elation but with a kind of self-inoculation”. Financial success is required to help feed their views of their own self-worth, and they need to constantly feed on success in order to sustain this view.
In a society that thrives on materialistic value, this is undoubtedly something that is credible. People judge by what they see — a nice house, an expensive car, the newest iPhone. How much money you earn, your status in a business, is seen as closely related to your own success.
“What drives their behaviour is accumulating as much worth as possible, then using it to acquire still more wealth.”
This wealth addiction is placed into contrast with people who have an addiction to spending. They suffer largely due to materialism in todays society, surrounded by targeted advertising and the idea that owning an abundance of items will equate to happiness. People suffering with a spending addiction will drive themselves into large amounts of debt with a need for the high that follows making the purchase. Seltzer says that billionaires, in contrast to those addicted to spending, will focus on the high of receiving the money and maintaining wealth, rather than that of spending it.
He writes: “unconsciously linking their fundamental human value to their financial worth, what drives their behaviour is accumulating as much worth as possible, then using it to acquire still more wealth.”
It’s like they’re constantly running a race — a race to secure business deal after business deal, acquiring cheque after cheque, but they never see the finish line. They never see an end goal to what they want to achieve, and likewise, if they ever stop, they’ll lose the race. They never see what they can do with that vast amount of wealth they already have, only, what wealth they have still yet to obtain.
Of course, there is a great difference between these billionaires and their supposed ‘wealth addiction’, and say, someone clinically diagnosed with another form of addiction. This is deeply routed within a privilege, and damages the lives of others, rather than their own.
It is absolutely abhorrent that they do not consider using their money for the greater good. Jeff Bezos could quite easily end world hunger with his wealth — and therefore, create a legacy for himself, a new sense of worth, rather than hoarding his money he will never spend while other people suffer. He lets those who work for him struggle working minimum wage, whilst he could quite easily pay them more than the living wage and still earn his billions. Maybe the addiction — or just plain greed — is blinding him, and the other billionaires in the world, from seeing it.
