Not sure if you're aware, but WE are the global elite. If you earn more than $34k per year, you are in the global top 1%.

So next time you negotiate your salary, or try to make more bonus at the end of the year, I want you to think about your addiction to greed. You just want to concentrate more and more wealth at the top, even when you know it will increase the chance of something like Brexit. Clearly that's your motivator.

If that doesn't work for you, try coming up with a more realistic model or how wealth actually moves, and what motivates people. Parables about the seven deadly sins make for entertaining and convincing story telling, but are not good models for reality.

The absolute amount a person is only loosely correlated with their standard of living. Especially when the amount of free time they have/etc is factored in.

Even in the US, 34K a year is a living wage in some parts of the country while in others its extremely hard to survive. Beside the obvious cost of living expenses for house, transportation, food, there is also the question of, how your making the 34k a year. If you can earn it in less than 40 hours a week you have time to supplement your income growing a garden, fixing your own car, or spending time tutoring your children. OTOH, if it takes 80 hours a week to earn that then you pretty much have to pay people to take care of all the little things you could be doing yourself.

First, many many people make $34k/year in US. But do they feel like they can control their life and destiny? I doubt it.

And yes let's say I make $100,000/year. Would I or most others be happy with it? Surprisingly, no. They probably want to make a little more to get a boat, or even a bigger saving for their children.