What is Excessive Wealth Disorder?

We define Excessive Wealth Disorder (EWD) as a societal sickness resulting in the insatiable need to acquire more. EWD affects not only the excessively wealthy, but everyone in our society. 

EWD poses a massive threat to our planet, our society, and our wellbeing as individuals. We live on a planet with finite resources, yet EWD pushes the people who own corporations toward unfettered growth and unrestricted extraction of natural resources. As Americans with EWD, we are more interested in glorifying billionaires than supporting solutions for the public good. It doesn’t matter how much we have, we always feel that it isn’t enough.

The cure for this disorder exists. We must change the American Dream from an individualist fantasy to one that defines success by how well we care for each other.

The Cycle of Excessive Wealth

Excessive wealth creates a relentless cycle that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. The Cycle of Excessive Wealth has three critical parts: Wealth Extraction, Wealth Hoarding, and Government Capture.

  • Nearly everyone in the United States experiences wealth extraction as part of their daily life. In the workplace it looks like an unlivable minimum wage and labor exploitation. In our banking system, wealth is extracted through predatory loans, high interest rates, and debilitating debt. Across our planet, wealth is extracted through environmentally harmful practices like mining and fracking. Embedded in the fabric of our daily life — especially in banking, policing, and legal systems — are fines and fees designed to extract the maximum amount of wealth from communities least able to afford it. The toll of wealth extraction on both people and the planet is undeniable.

  • Hoarding wealth is a central behavior among the excessively rich. Wealth hoarding is enabled by our tax system by allowing excessively rich people to hide their wealth so they can avoid paying their taxes.

    For example, profits from selling assets (capital gains) are taxed at lower rates than regular income, allowing the excessively wealthy to accumulate wealth more efficiently at everyone else’s expense. The excessively wealthy also engage in estate planning and corporate tax avoidance strategies, like profit shifting, to further preserve their wealth by not paying taxes. The lack of progressive tax rates combined with an abundance of tax loopholes directly contribute to extreme wealth concentration.

    Additionally, philanthropy serves as a tax benefit for the rich by allowing them to deduct charitable donations from their taxable income, reducing their overall tax liability. Excessive wealth hoarding is upheld and proliferated via the wealth defense industry made up of attorneys, accountants, and wealth managers — whose sole professional purpose is to ensure long-term wealth hoarding by their clients.

  • Excessive wealth is maintained through our political system. The excessively wealthy finance political campaigns and influence public relations to manipulate elections and policy decisions with only their interests in mind. Through lobbying, control of the media and by whitewashing their reputations with strategic “philanthropy,” the excessively wealthy shape the narratives and political priorities that perpetuates their ability to accumulate wealth at the expense of people and the planet.

    With their unrestricted influence, the excessively wealthy undermine the core principles of democracy, transforming our government into a system where power and representation is bought by the highest bidders.

    Our government legalizes this cycle of extraction through policies that siphon money from the majority of Americans while granting unrestricted power to the excessively wealthy. The cycle continues.