Why do we tolerate mega-wealth?

[marions ghost]

61. Absolutely it is an illness--an addictive illness

This is a really excellent article about it from January 2014:

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/cash-hoarding-becomes-addiction-5502

Where are today’s super rich putting all this loot? When they're not hoarding it, a good bit of it is cascading into politics. The Washington Post reported last week that in 2012 the billionaire Koch brothers and their allies stuffed at least $407 million in politically active nonprofits (and didn't even have to disclose their donors.) These rich people want to influence, corrupt and poison our democracy by getting politicians elected who won't tax them.

----------

But why isn't the top 0.01 percent ever satisfied? Whenever we ask them to pay a little more in taxes, or ask them to pay us a "living wage", they look at us as though we were crazy—as if we were asking them to burn their money, even though they have no other use for their excess cash. It's almost as though they cling to their money like a security blanket, afraid to let go. Besides just narcissism and ethics, do they also have issues with anxiety as well? Let's ask the forensic psychologist Dr. Stephen Diamond:

"Avarice can describe various greedy behaviors such as betrayal or treason for personal gain, hoarding of material things, theft, robbery, and fraudulent schemes such as Bernie Madoff's, designed to dishonestly manipulate others for personal profit...Greed is about never being satisfied with what one has, always wanting and expecting more. It is an insatiable hunger...Addiction is a form of greed. Addicts always want more of what gets them high, gives them pleasure, enables escape from anxiety."

And from the clinical psychologist, Dr. Tian Dayton:

"The person who uses money to mood-alter can have their relationship with money spin out of control; by being overly focused on accumulating it, spending it, hoarding it or using it to control people, places and things... Just as with a drug or alcohol, tolerance increases and they may find themselves needing to devote increasingly larger amounts of time to these activities... Just as is the case with any addict, their preoccupation with money becomes their primary preoccupation and money becomes their primary relationship."

(long article at link)