The Morality of Too Much Money

Why do some people morally justify excessive wealth in a world where so many struggle? In some cultures, people find excessive wealth immoral, while others are structured so that having too much money is morally neutral or even praised. Here, we examine how people’s moral values and national inequality predict the moralization of excessive wealth around the globe. Using demographically stratified samples from 20 nations (N = 4,351), we find notable variability in the moralization of excessive wealth such that more equal societies (e.g., Belgium, Switzerland) consider having too much money more wrong.