I usually take the view that I'd listen more to you if, to prove your point more empirically, you got reasonably rich and then just decided to give away all your wealth and resign to some lonely cabin in Maine.
I can't either, but for a rather different reason. What exactly does being rich get you these days?
You get to sit in a slightly nicer seat on an aeroplane. You get to drive a car that has vastly more power than any sane person needs, rather than one that merely has substantially more power than any sane person needs. You get to own a house with a lot of surplus rooms to fill up with stuff that has no discernible impact on your standard of living.
Rich people don't get access to a super-duper internet, they don't get to watch better movies or listen to better music, they don't really get to make better friends. Most material comforts are perfectly accessible to someone on an ordinary middle-class income.
Never having to work again is cool, but most people are unlikely to reach that point. Your probability of accumulating that level of wealth before retirement age is remote, the hedonic treadmill is a powerful trap and most people find meaning and value in work anyway.
Being average isn't better than being rich, but it isn't much worse either, at least not in a country with a sane government. The stuff that makes a real difference is mostly a matter of public policy - Germans and Scandinavians don't live in fear of a medical bankruptcy or an at-will dismissal, nor do they desperately want to own a home to escape shady landlords and rising rents.
And the statistically average American is barely treading water. I realize that the average European is better off, but that's not relevant to America right now.
Financially, the average European is a fair bit worse off than the average American. Gross median household incomes in Germany are about 25% lower than in the US; America has the sixth highest median household income in the world. GDP per capita tells a similar story. This simply isn't a question of money.
Americans don't need to get rich, they need to vote for someone who gives a damn.
I can tell you that there's a huge breakpoint once you are in a situation where you are both 'living below your means' and have a nest egg that is measured fractions of a year of living expenses. It's a safety net. It lets you take risks that you otherwise wouldn't feel safe/sane entertaining.
If you really hate your job, you can job hunt and not be petrified that people at work will find out. You can take a risk on a startup that is doing something you consider good (ethically) or awesome (technologically) and not worry as much about them being out of business in eight months.
You can push back on demands to compromise your ideals. What's the worse they can do, fire you? Your explanation for why you were let go writes itself. You can work reasonable hours. You can spend some of that time doing volunteer work or other social activities that may actually improve your employment options in the future (virtuous cycle, pun intended).
And, you can afford to participate in the technology treadmill that most likely underlies your job skills if you hang out on HN.
[edit] Stresses outside of work show up in how you interact with people. I was much more agreeable at work when I knew my rent was paid even if payroll screwed up my paycheck. (And I was much more agreeable at work once I started taking care of my health, too, which was easier when I had more leisure time).
That said, I personally define rich as being part of the capital class rather than the worker class. My perspective (note that some of these are a bit hand-wavy since the levels of money needed sometimes differ significantly and sometimes the lines are not clearly delineated):
- You don't sit on a commercial airplane. You own your own plane or take charters. Slightly lower on the totem pole is taking commuter jets (something akin to semi-charters).
- You typically/often don't drive a car for the purpose of transportation. Someone drives you. That said, you may own one or more cars. Some of these cars may not even be street legal, but they can be delivered to the track for times that you want to take them out for a spin.
- You do, in fact, listen to better music than most people. This might be in the form of live music. It might be in the form of a very well-designed high end music system in a listening room -- music you thought you knew well will sound completely different.
- You don't actually need to use the internet -- for the most part, you have people do those things for you. That said, if you need fast internet, you will probably live in an area that can accommodate your needs (depending on where you live in the US, access to fast internet is not a given even if you have the money).
- Any "work" that is done is done because it is an interesting problem to work on. Other than that, there is very real unofficial work of building and maintaining social capital. Sometimes this is the ugly kind of social climbing that is dramatized on TV. Other (often?) times, it is cultivating relationships and having experiences with people you like somewhere between a little and a lot (more time with the latter). Since money and (to a lesser extent) time are not limiting factors, incredible experiences can be had.
- Most things that people would consider "chores" are not a necessary part of your everyday life. No grocery shopping. No carpooling. No cooking. No restricted schedule due to child care (nanny almost always available).
Those a just a few things that I think are or can be different/better for people in the capital class. Some things that are worse is that often times folks born into the capital class have existential crises. Avoiding this type of crisis comes down to good parenting (and perhaps good parenting advisers and nannies).
Just my 2 cents...
How big is the difference between economy, business class and a private jet? You're a bit more comfortable for a few hours, but that's about it. The life-changing part of air travel has been democratised; the expensive add-ons are mostly status signals.
The difference between owning a car and not owning a car is huge; the difference between driving yourself and being driven is a nicety that even a lot of billionaires forgo. Motor racing isn't a particularly expensive hobby if you're willing to do it in a used Neon rather than a race-prepped Porsche.
I trained as an audio engineer and I can tell you that there's nothing in music that you'll hear on a $50,000 custom hifi system that you won't also hear on a $300 pair of Sennheiser or AKG headphones.
I think there's a general principle here, underpinned by economies of scale. If you make a million of just about anything, you can make them really good and really cheap. There's just not a lot of extra value that can be added above and beyond that sweet spot.
When our economy was mostly driven by labour, the rich got access to an array of luxuries that were completely unaffordable to the majority. Now that the economy is driven mostly by innovation and automation, you don't have to be that far above the poverty line to reap most of the benefits of our civilization.
Some specific additional responses:
- private jet: With a private jet, time from car door to taxiing the runway adds about 5-10 extra minutes total on each side of the trip. On a commercial jet, that's more like 30-120 minutes extra on each side depending on the airport.
- audio: My most memorable listening experience was on a $100k+ system with B&W Nautilus speakers. I don't remember all of the peripherals, so I can't cost it out exactly. Anyway, we played some CDs (heathens!) of some baroque performances that I thought I knew well. When we started listening, I heard things that I had never heard before. It completely blew my mind. The music sounded totally different, and the subtle expressions of the performers via their instruments were far more obvious. I've listened to the same music on $300 Sennheiser headphones (which I love and recommend) -- totally not the same.
In general, extremely rich people are able to buy A LOT of time and very high quality experiences. Is this as much of a quality of life jump from upper middle class as a jump from limited means to middle class? I think it's a faulty comparison as the needs and wants (both practical and aspirational) of each of these starting groups is very different.
That said, ymmv.
Also, why would someone give up money they already had? They either worked hard for it or obtained it by some luck. In both cases, throwing it away is not earning that person more time for hobbies or to spend with family.
It takes work and skill to get rich, and the reward may not be worth it to some, or it may be antithetical to their goals.