The multiplication of wants

Our early ancestors differed from us not primarily in whether their wants were satisfied but in the kinds of wants they had. We want more than they did, and we want differently. Our wants develop in many directions and change continually. Wants multiply with the multiplication of the means to satisfy them. By contrast, the consumption habits, and thus the wants, of early humans did not change much. Why this multiplication of wants and of means in modern society (Hegel 1951, pp. 122–29)? I think three interconnected objectives go a long way in accounting for modern man's desire for wealth. They are esteem, autonomy, and security.

Esteem

“The possession of wealth confers honor” as the American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen observed (1899, p. 26). Desire for the regard of others looms large in any explanation of the desire for wealth. It plays its part in primitive societies where the little wealth available could still be used to establish differences in status between those that have some or more and those that have none or less. This use of wealth is exemplified by the potlatch of Native American peoples of the Pacific Northwest:

The wealth given away in the potlatch represents, and thus measures, the “true worth” of the giver.