I think if you dig a bit deeper into most people's motivations for wanting to be rich, you will find out that independence is the really reason. Without any evidence I think that people want to be rich, so they don't have to worry about money.
I think Aristotle Onassis' theory is a bit more accurate:
“If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.”
Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status.
For nice middle-class me, going to prison for drug dealing would be a huge step down in my status. For some kid in the ghetto, though, it could easily be the opposite.
My grandfather worked at a state prison in NH. He was friends with an inmate who made the prison his home. Whenever his sentence ended, he would break into a house and wait for the owner to find him and call the police to take him back to prison. He was a pretty nice guy, and fairly smart - he even helped critique the first electronic security system at the prison. (He picked the lock with a ballpoint pen and walked into the warden's office to tell him exactly what was wrong with the system!)
>"Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status."
// Many people choose to take on a lower "status" though.
Chasing "the good life" or "down-sizing" for example.
This is, to my mind at least, a hankering for something more meaningful than financial acumen or societal position.
Well of course the great part and the worst flaw of my status-maximization theory is that it can't be disproved. The guy who gives up a high-paying job in finance to go become a starving artist is arguably maximising his status ("Oooh look at that guy following his dream and not caring about money") and so is the guy who makes the reverse decision ("Being an artist is for try-hard suckers, look at my money!").
It's hard to find an example of someone unambiguously lowering their own status, since voluntarily lowering your status in order to achieve some other aim can be, in itself, a status-raising activity.
It appears you're messing with your definition of status in order to make such statements. Could you give a succinct definition of what you mean by "status"?
Status is defined by the general populus, others define your status, your place in the "pecking order". People regarding your actions as positive ('following his dream, blah blah') doesn't mean your status is increased.
"a starving artist is arguably maximising his status"
Yes, it depends on your definition of status .. so ...
Yeah there was a TED Talk that touched on money and happiness. Apparently $60,000/year was the cognitive (or material) line necessary so that the average person could stop worrying about money.
“Below 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I’ve rarely seen lines so flat.”
I wonder if you could frame this as an expression of basic economic principles. The very most valuable thing is that which cannot be bought for any price: time.
