Why are we all so obsessed with getting rich?

What is the actual motivation behind ‘getting rich’? Why do we want so much money, and how much money do we need until we are satisfied?

Like many people on this Earth, I grew up quite poor. I mean, we were still probably richer than a big portion of the world’s population, but by Western standards we were poor. I’m not sure when I realised we were poor, but once I did I made the usual vows to earn more money when I grew up, without much thought behind it other than “I want to buy more stuff!”. I have certainly surpassed the standard of living I once had, and am apparently part of the established middle class according to The Great British Class calculator. 

It’s been noticed that for those who grow up poor, their spending habits seem to go to the two extremes of the spectrum. They either spend excessively once they earn comfortably or they develop a fear of spending as they feel they never have enough money. I am part of the latter group and have only, in the last year or so, begun to be able to spend money without the fear that I’m never going to have money ever again. This fear has made me much more stingy than I’d like to be, I’ve felt unable to invest in courses, buy things from handmade sellers, and share my ‘wealth’ in a giving way. 

Couple this with that face we’re all feeling the squeeze right now–the soaring cost of living, increased food bills, skyrocketing energy prices, the list goes on. (And for my bottom line, the fact that companies love to pull their marketing–and therefore writing–budgets when times are tough.) From what I’m seeing, money fear seems to be the theme of 2023. 

All of this got me thinking recently, what is the actual motivation behind ‘getting rich’, why do we want so much money, and how much money do we need until we are satisfied? 

I am also tentative that this piece may sound like a ‘well-off’ white woman complaining about money, but I really would like to emphasise that this isn’t the case. I am interested in exploring how our exposure to and relationship with money makes us act, and would like to challenge that many of our preconceived notions aren’t true or accurate. 

In the UK, many of us are genuinely living in or near poverty–our energy prices alone have risen 36% in the last 10 years, yet British workers are £11,000 worse off a year after 15 years of ‘wage stagnation’–but I often wonder if it’s the lack of money thats the problem, or the way our world treats it. 

We (those of us in the Global North) live in an overabundant world–a third of all food produced in the world is wasted, and we dump a 2.12 billion tons of waste with 99% of the stuff we buy being trashed within 6 months–yet we still feel an overwhelming sense of poverty, the book Sacred Economics described it as “the poverty of immeasurable things”. These are the priceless things money can’t buy, and an over excess of the things it can. 

Our drive to excessively consume is driven by our existential loneliness (as we are cut off from nature and community) and perception of scarcity. Our unhappiness is created from the pain of living in an existence so far removed from what (and who) we are. 

We are ever-dependent on strangers–and therefore money–for things that humankind has never had to pay for, think shelter, food, entertainment, childcare, and community connection. Life itself has become a consumer item, it’s been taken away and sold back to us in the name of economic progress. We may feel dead inside, but we’re so very rich.

We exist in a world of superabundance, yet we still live in the never-ending search of financial security. We associate our freedom with our wealth, but financial freedom never seems to be achievable. Studies say that financial happiness starts at $85,000 a year, but when 2,000 people who had a net worth of at least $1 million were asked how happy they were, they said they’d still need two or three times as much to be perfectly happy. 

I was originally going to write that if you gave me one million pounds, then I would be ecstatic and never work again, and leave it at that, but this is another one of the reasons why people want to be rich. We have to work a lot to survive in this world, and even if you like your job (like I do), then you still don’t want to work 40, 50, 60 hours a week to pay your bills. 

Our capitalist society is described as free because if you don’t want to work, then you don’t have to. There’s no military government forcing you to get a job so you really should stop complaining and be grateful for all that freedom. Except, I don’t really equate freedom with dying if you don’t make a living to buy food and shelter. (And yes, I live in England and we have benefits and social housing and all those lovely things, but, despite what many people think, you can’t just sign on and never work again.)

The question that always comes up in any discussions around a post-capitalist world, one where we work less, is who will do the undesirable jobs? Who will clean the toilets, collect rubbish, and work in the factories? Of course, ‘unpleasant’ work will always exist, but there will be less of it. If we’re consuming less throwaway stuff, if we’re using refillable packaging, if we’re composting our food scraps, then there will be so much less rubbish to collect. Local permaculture farms will create less drudgerous labour, assembly line labour could be phased out to introduce maintenance or reparative labour, a much more rewarding kind of work.

There’s also the possibility that if we paid the workers of these less desirable jobs better, if we had a better division of labour, then people may become more willing to work them. I believe we can see this is true because people still decide to be nurses, healthcare workers, and more despite the incredibly low pay because they have a genuine desire to help people. 

I also challenge you to consider what actually is unpleasant work? If you’ve ever been on cleaning duty after an event, when you’re tidying with friends or people you enjoy talking to, suddenly the process isn’t so bad. When I only have to deep clean my entire house once a week and I can put music or a podcast on, the couple of hours of manual labour becomes quite fun. There will always be tedious chores, but if you only have to do them for a few hours, a few weeks, or a few months at a time, if you don’t have to dedicate 8 hours of your day, every day, for the foreseeable future, then suddenly they aren’t so bad.

This future where you don’t have to work to meet your basic needs also confuses people, they ask what will I do with my spare time? Well, you can help out in your local community, take up more hobbies, continue your education, or just simply relax. People will continue to do whatever activities or projects they did out of their own free will, just because they find them inherently fulfilling, not because they need a wage. 

When you take part in activities, do you do it for enjoyment or for the finished product? When we were kids, did we draw, write, read, play sports, and bake for fun, or because we knew someday it’d make us money? In our current society, millions of people still choose to make art, become social workers, and study degrees with low job prospects over other more lucrative careers, just because they want to.

Is it really unreasonable to want to live in a world surrounded by beautiful things, made by people who genuinely love what they do? Would you prefer to receive a gift that is handmade by a master craftsman, not brought into the world through suffering from a borderline slave labour factory halfway across the world? If our finite needs can be met through the incredible productivity we have achieved through machinery and technology, we should be able to dedicate less time to meet these needs, and instead focus our time and energy on the infinite: art, science, knowledge, beauty! 

I often try to sit and think to myself why I want to make so much money. Taking away the scarcity and the fear to consider what I actually want out of my life. 

Do I prefer a meal in a restaurant with friends, or do I prefer it when we have dinners together at each other’s houses and cook for one another? A day out shopping for new clothes, or a class on how to sew your own dresses? A decorative print ordered off Amazon, or a hand painted piece of art given to me by someone I love? When I think about it, I always prefer the latter, and I can imagine most people would as well. 

It’s been a continuous unlearning process, which I’m still undergoing. The thoughts still creep up to tell me I should go on a night out with my friends as it’s going to be more fun than a night in. I should buy some new clothes so I look more stylish. I should earn more money so I can do an endless list of things I’m not sure I genuinely want to do. 

Then I begin to think about the bigger things in life, if I want to buy somewhere with enough land to have a big vegetable garden, if I want to have kids and give them a good life, if I want to travel, experience new cultures, and meet new people, I’ll need money right? Wrong again. Do I need to own my personal permaculture farm or would I rather have a connection with those around me and access to a local allotment or community garden? Do kids need hundreds of toys and new clothes to live a good life (no!) or would they rather have a present, loving, and kind parent? Do I need all-inclusive holidays filled to the brim with eating out and adrenaline pumping activities or would I prefer a stay in a local B&B with time to take it slow, explore the country and meet the locals? I might be starting to see a pattern here.

I’m lucky enough to already own my own home, but saving for something doesn’t feel the same as accumulating as much money as possible for no reason other than to have money. I’m pretty guilty of hoarding money for no other reason than to have money just in case, but I’m trying to shake off my old ways of scarcity–and my iron grip on my savings account–and live in a freer flow. I want to be generous, I want to give to those who need it, I want to support ethical makers, and I want to stop my obsession with earning more, more, more. 

I’m getting better; we’re a carless household, I’ve broken most of my consumerist obsessions and try to only buy necessities,–or at least only buy from places where I know the creator is living a good life–and I’m lessening the hold money has on my day-to-day actions. 

I’ll leave you with this quote from an inspiring yet challenging book, Sacred Economics:

“If you want to create a world of abundance, a world of gratitude, a world of the gift, you can start by using today’s money, while it still exists, to create more gratitude in the world. [...] To get ready for [a new] economy, and to live today in it’s spirit, instead of investing money with the purpose of making more of it, we shift the focus of investment towards using accumulated money as the gift that it is: a gift from the old world to the new, a gift from the ancestors to the future.”

P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.

You might also like to read:

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Yes, I'm an environmentalist. Yes, I'm also a hypocrite.

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Inspiration and resources

Sacred Economics | Charles Eisenstein

The Great British class calculator | BBC News

This is an idea I’ve been mulling over for a few months now, but recent research have made it click into place. I’d like to mention two publications I subscribe to who released related pieces recently because, although they didn’t inspire this piece, they are amazing writers who I’d love to share. 

• You don't want to be rich, you want to be free & there is a difference by

  Cosmic Anarchy

• Do you really want to be rich or do you want to be free? by

  The Green Fix