I don't think that most people wish to make more money only so they can buy more things. This may have been true for the baby boomer generation, but peoples' attitudes towards money has changed quite a bit recently. When the realization that owning a home wasn't the ATM machine people always thought it would be, that changed most everyone's perspective on money.

I would argue that people wish to make at least enough money where they aren't struggling from paycheck to paycheck. That way they can easily afford to put food on the table, put clothes on their kids' backs, pay for their kids to go to college, and go on a family trip every once in awhile.