In various cultures, people often debate whether having a lot of money is a blessing, a burden, or a moral problem. According to our new research, the perception of billionaires is not based solely on economics. Judgment also depends on certain cultural and moral instincts, which helps explain why opinions about wealth are so polarized.
The study, which my colleague Mohammad Atari and I published in the research journal PNAS Nexus in June 2025, analyzed survey data from more than 4,300 people in 20 countries. We discovered that while most people around the world do not strongly condemn having “too much money,” there are stark cultural differences.
In richer, more economically equal countries, such as Switzerland and Belgium, people were more likely to say that having too much money is immoral. In poorer countries with greater inequality, such as Peru or Nigeria, the accumulation of wealth tended to be considered more acceptable.
Beyond economics, we found that judgments about excessive wealth are also influenced by deeper moral intuitions. Our study was based on the theory of moral foundations, which proposes that the sense of right and wrong is built on six essential values: care, equality, proportionality, loyalty, authority and purity. We found that people who highly value equality and purity are more likely to view excessive wealth as wrong.
The result on equality was predictable, but the role of purity was more surprising. Purity is often associated with ideas of cleanliness, holiness, or avoiding contamination; Therefore, discovering that it is associated with negative views about wealth gives new meaning to the expression “filthy rich.”
As a social psychologist who studies morality, culture, and technology, I am interested in how these types of judgments differ between different groups and societies. Social and institutional systems interact with individual moral beliefs, shaping how people perceive culture war issues such as wealth and inequality and, in turn, how they engage with the policies and conflicts that arise around them.
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Why is it important?
Billionaires exert increasing influence on politics, technology and global development. According to Oxfam, an organization dedicated to the fight against poverty, the richest 1% of the world’s population owns more wealth than 95% of the population combined.
However, efforts to address inequality by taxing or regulating the rich could be based on a flawed premise: that society generally condemns extreme wealth. If, on the other hand, most people find it morally justifiable to accumulate wealth, such reforms might find little support.
Our findings suggest that, in countries where inequality is highly visible and persistent, the population can adapt by morally justifying their structural economic system, arguing that it is fair and legitimate. In wealthier, more egalitarian societies, people appear to be more sensitive to the potential harms of excess.
While our study shows that the majority of the world’s population does not view excessive wealth as morally reprehensible, those living in wealthier, more egalitarian countries are much more likely to condemn it.
This contrast raises a more incisive question: When people in privileged societies denounce billionaires and try to limit their power, are they making global injustice visible or projecting their own sense of guilt? Are they projecting a moral principle shaped by their own prosperity onto poorer countries, where wealth can represent survival, progress or even hope?
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What is still unknown about having ‘too much money’
An open question: How do these perspectives change over time? Do attitudes change when societies become wealthier or more egalitarian? Are young people, compared to older generations, more likely to condemn billionaires? Our study offers a general overview, but long-term research could reveal whether moral judgments reflect broader economic or cultural changes.
Another unknown is the unexpected role of purity. Why would a value linked to cleanliness and holiness influence how people judge billionaires? Our follow-up study found that concerns about purity extended beyond money to other forms of “excess,” such as disapproval of having “too much” ambition, sex, or fun. This suggests that people may view excess itself—not just inequality—as corrupting.
What’s next?
We continue to study how cultural values, social systems, and moral intuitions shape people’s judgments about justice and excess, from perspectives on wealth and ambition to the knowledge and computing power of AI.
Understanding these gut moral reactions within broader social systems is critical to debates about inequality. But it can also help explain how people evaluate technologies, leaders, and institutions that accrue disproportionate and excessive power or influence.
*Jackson Trager is a Doctoral Candidate in Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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