Global survey investigates views on excessive wealth and morality

Is excessive wealth immoral? Most people do not think so, but members of societies that are more equal and wealthy than average are more likely to believe it is wrong to have too much money.

Currently, the world’s eight richest individuals have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of people worldwide. There are two distinct moral objections to such extreme wealth. One is that economic inequality is wrong, an opinion shared by a majority of people worldwide. The other is that extreme wealth itself is wrong.

Published in PNAS Nexus, Jackson Trager and Mohammad Atari recruited survey samples mirroring demographics in terms of gender, education, and age for 20 nations, totaling 4,351 participants overall.

Participants were asked “Is it morally wrong to have too much money?” “Too rich” was left unquantified, given broad individual and cultural variations in how much money is considered excessive. People in Russia, Switzerland, and Ireland had the strongest moral objections to excessive wealth, and people in Peru, Argentina, and Mexico had the least objections to excessive wealth.

Globally, the average response was somewhere between “not wrong at all” and “moderately wrong.” Nations with high GDP were more morally opposed to excessive wealth than nations with low GDP, possibly reflecting the greater visibility of harms caused by excessive wealth in wealthier nations. Nations characterized by equality were also more morally opposed to excessive wealth than nations with high levels of inequality.

Individual respondents who valued authority and people being rewarded for their work and skill were less likely to condemn excessive wealth, as were those on the political right. Survey results also revealed an association between moral condemnation of excessive wealth and values related to equality and purity, as well as younger age.

According to the authors, the link between purity and condemnation of riches may be related to concerns that large amounts of money and the endless avenues for self-indulgence that money affords are apt to corrupt individuals, reducing their spiritual cleanliness. Extreme wealth, to some, is disgusting.

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