I believe that the drive to amass more & more wealth, no matter how much the person already has is

[nuxvomica]

8. In my theorizing, it's a form of arrested development

When people fail to discover their own powers through rites of passage, they remain immature in adulthood, consigned to a continuous twilight of childhood, in which the world seems to be growing ever darker. Unable to engage with the world as the hero, they only have their appetites to guide them and need more power, wealth or weaponry to feel safe. We all seek the bliss of innocence, that state in which the benign self can be fully expressed, which is characterized by honesty, playfulness and wonder. The hero, the wholly realized mature adult, finds that bliss by protecting the innocent, so that the innocent may grow and learn, and one day become heroes themselves. Otherwise, they fall to corruption, the state characterized by sham, drudgery and fear. Curiously, this idea has been expressed in an apocryphal quote attributed to Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." It is the singular duty of the hero, the adult human, to transform the world into a safer place for the innocent. All our other duties arise from this one. Myth and literature have guided us to this understanding for millennia because it is not an assured progression from innocence to heroism. The hero is always reluctant, the challenges are great, but transforming the world is one heck of a reward.

The theory is useful, especially in politics, in that it makes it fairly easy to identify who is a champion of innocence and who is a slave to corruption. In playfulness alone, compare Obama, with his wry sense of humor, and Trump, with no sense of humor at all.