Two essential components outline in case you assume it’s unsuitable to be ‘filthy wealthy’

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Your help makes all of the distinction. Learn extra Throughout cultures, individuals usually wrestle with whether or not having a lot of cash is a blessing, a burden or an ethical drawback.

In line with our new analysis, how somebody views billionaires isn’t nearly economics. Judgment additionally hinges on sure cultural and ethical instincts, which helps clarify why opinions about wealth are so polarized.

The examine, which my colleague Mohammad Atari and I printed within the analysis journal PNAS Nexus in June 2025, examined survey information from greater than 4,300 individuals throughout 20 nations. We discovered that whereas most individuals around the globe don't strongly condemn having “an excessive amount of cash,” there are putting cultural variations.

In rich, extra economically equal nations similar to Switzerland and Belgium, individuals have been extra prone to say that having an excessive amount of cash is immoral. In nations which can be poorer and extra unequal, similar to Peru or Nigeria, individuals tended to view wealth accumulation as extra acceptable.

Past economics, we discovered that judgments about extreme wealth are additionally formed by deeper ethical intuitions. Our examine drew on ethical foundations concept, which proposes that individuals’s moral sense is constructed on six core values – care, equality, proportionality, loyalty, authority and purity.

We discovered that individuals who extremely worth equality and purity have been extra prone to see extreme wealth as unsuitable.

<img src="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/10/01/00/203948b45fa6632b905eba24b1a40ceeY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzU5MzE2MzQz-2.72726715.jpg" srcset="https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/10/01/00/203948b45fa6632b905eba24b1a40ceeY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzU5MzE2MzQz-2.72726715.jpg?quality=75&width=320&auto=webp 320w, https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/10/01/00/203948b45fa6632b905eba24b1a40ceeY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzU5MzE2MzQz-2.72726715.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp 640w" loading="lazy" alt="People from more equal countries are more likely to find billionaires problematic" class="sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn"/> open picture in gallery

Individuals from extra equal nations usually tend to discover billionaires problematic (PA Archive) The equality consequence was anticipated, however the position of purity was extra shocking. Purity is often related to concepts about cleanliness, sanctity or avoiding contamination – so discovering that it's related to destructive views about wealth offers new that means to the phrase “filthy wealthy.”

As a social psychologist who research morality, tradition and expertise, I’m inquisitive about how these sorts of judgments differ throughout teams and societies.

Social and institutional methods work together with particular person ethical beliefs, shaping how individuals view tradition battle points similar to wealth and inequality − and, in flip, how they have interaction with the insurance policies and conflicts that emerge round them.

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Why it issues

Billionaires wield rising affect in politics, expertise and international improvement. The richest 1% of individuals on Earth personal extra wealth than 95% of individuals mixed, in keeping with Oxfam, a corporation centered on preventing poverty.

Efforts to handle inequality by taxing or regulating the wealthy might, nonetheless, relaxation on a mistaken assumption — that the general public usually condemns excessive wealth. If most individuals as a substitute view amassing wealth as morally justifiable, such reforms might face restricted help.

In regards to the writer Jackson Trager is PhD Candidate in Psychology at USC Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences. This text was first printed by The Dialog and is republished beneath a Inventive Commons licence. Learn the unique article.

Our findings counsel that in nations the place inequality is very seen and protracted, individuals might adapt by morally justifying their structural financial system, arguing that it's honest and bonafide. In wealthier, extra equal societies, individuals seem extra delicate to the potential harms of extra.

Whereas our examine exhibits that most individuals around the globe don't view extreme wealth as morally unsuitable, these in wealthier and extra equal nations are much more prone to condemn it.

That distinction raises a sharper query: When individuals in privileged societies denounce and try and restrict billionaires, are they shining a light-weight on international injustice − or projecting their very own sense of guilt? Are they projecting an ethical precept formed by their very own prosperity onto poorer nations, the place wealth might symbolize survival, progress and even hope?

What nonetheless isn’t recognized

One open query: How do these views change over time? Do attitudes shift when societies turn out to be wealthier or extra equal? Are younger individuals extra possible than older generations to sentence billionaires?

Our examine provides a snapshot, however long-term analysis might reveal whether or not ethical judgments monitor broader financial or cultural modifications.

One other uncertainty is the sudden position of purity. Why would a worth tied to cleanliness and sanctity form how individuals choose billionaires? Our follow-up examine discovered that purity issues prolonged past cash to different types of “extra,” similar to disapproving of getting “an excessive amount of” ambition, intercourse or enjoyable.

This implies that individuals might even see extra itself – not simply inequality – as corrupting.

What’s subsequent

We’re persevering with to review how cultural values, social methods and ethical intuitions form individuals’s judgments of equity and extra – from views of wealth and ambition to information and AI computing energy.

Understanding these gut-level, ethical reactions inside bigger social methods issues for debates about inequality.

However it may well additionally assist clarify how individuals consider applied sciences, leaders and establishments that accumulate disproportionate, extreme energy or affect.