We may read from Democritus: "The desire for wealth, if not limited by satiety, is much harder to endure than the most extreme poverty; for greater desires create greater lacks." (Fragment 83). Following from the example of Aristotle (Ethics V.V), we see that money is simply a representation of Demand, and further (Politics I.IX), it is only a substitute for real wealth, since the man who has much money cannot consume it for sustenance. Thus, money is in itself impoverishing, like "Midas Touch" (which transforms everything one touches into gold).
Xenophon's Socratic dialogue "Economist" (360 BCE) also explores a paradox of wealth (Chapter II), that the more wealth one gains, the more one must spend in order to preserve it, making wealth a self-defeating venture. This is intuitive enough, for likewise that the state is a construct of preserving property (Cicero - De Officiis, II.XXI), the increase of property must increase the state, taxing old wealth for the new, thus destroying property for the sake of property. In this case, the demand for wealth causes its destruction, like spending money to make more money (t. Xenophon - Revenues, 355 BCE). The conversion of present goods into future goods we may then regard as capital, which by its investment, introduces perpetual poverty.
Xenophon (Revenues, 355 BCE) sees that the only way to increase the wealth of the Polis is by mining for more silver to increase the coinage, to increase commerce. This he tasks with the state to invest in slaves, which will be evidently paid for by taxation. Thus, the capacity of commerce is inversely measured by public spending, creating impoverishment for the sake of marginal gain. What does not hurt the master's purse (e.g. total employment) hurts the slave himself (e.g. labour time), and so the result of riches is proportional poverty.
Even the things of riches; precious stones and precious metals, are useless compared to what is common, as Aristotle writes: "Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful. Thus, gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder to get, and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may be argued that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can make more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom useful, whence the saying: The best of things is water.” (Rhetoric I.VII). This is the "paradox of value" later stated by others, namely Adam Smith (1776), that luxury is defined by its cost of production, which concurrently aligns with general uselessness (Jevons, 1871). Thus, greater capital investment often means a lesser total product, not a greater one, and so like money, wealth is conserved by its transference into useless things, incapable of sustenance, and thus only attain their demand as a means of exchange. Money is a possession made to be dispossessed; it is wealth which is simultaneously poverty; he that sells everything for money imagines himself rich, yet he is the poor:
<For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt 16:26) We can see an admission of the failure of the complexity (variability) of wealth by Jevons (1878):
<As society becomes more complex and the forms of human activity multiply, so must multiply also the points at which careful legislation and continuous social effort are required to prevent abuse, and secure the best utilisation of resources […] crime and ignorance and drunkenness show no apparent diminution—nay, sometimes they show an increase.https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers#lf0236_head_003So then, as capital increases, the state increases, and liberties are restrained. Jevons even speaks upon the misery which the capitalist era has brought to England:
<England is traditionally called “Merrie England;” but there has always seemed to me to be something absurdly incongruous in the name at present. It is a case of anachronism, if not of sarcasm. England may have been merry in the days when the village green and the neighbouring common were still unenclosed; when the Maypole was set up, and the village fiddler and the old English sports were really existing institutions. But all that sort of thing is a matter of history. […] There is no difficulty in seeing that there is a tendency, in England at least, to the progressive degradation of popular amusements.https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers#lf0236_head_003All manners of amusement he mentions are medieval in conception, when England was "merry" yet untouched by heavy industry, and before the mass privatisation of common land. The increase of wealth then, is not an aid to the benefit of men, but a means of his destruction.
Marx of course makes the same point; that the total productivity of the worker is in proportion to his misery; Jevons also happens upon this (1871), by seeing how higher wages comport to less duration in production, and thus the inverse is true, that the longer one works, the less he will be paid for it. Productivity then, is the enemy of man's happiness. We may further relate the paradox of wealth by Keynes (General Theory, X.VI), where spending money to make money, in the mining of gold, is equivalent to digging up bottles full of dollars, which engages men in production, but as yet, makes men utterly unproductive, by the circularity of the act. This of course is now the agenda of the public sector, which creates artificial demand for busy work. Thus, the supply of labour serves vain ends in this way, by calling to the duty of a self-imposed poverty, while avoiding the causes of real poverty. But as we know, a person is only useful to what is lacking in another; thus, it is in the interest of a doctor to have people be sick, like Khaldun writes (Muqadimmah, V.XXVIII). Poverty then, is the cause of riches, since riches is its own form of poverty.
One possible practical solution, then, is to regulate the production of luxuries (which is in essence, the program of socialism). Adam Smith once suggested the same, after Rousseau (1755), that in taxing luxury goods "the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor" (Wealth of Nations, (V.I.III). This is like how Keynes says that the funds for gold mining ought to be put toward constructing homes, and thus capital to be re-allocated to more pressing demands. Jevons (1883) compares the multiplication of social utility likewise after Gossen (1854), as the variability of consumption, which implies a proportional division of labour, but even if as Jevons admits (1871), the total utility of necessary and consumable goods is superior to Luxury, then the limits to the division of labour ought to be set at the limit of social need, which we may cultivate by public funds. Jevons and Smith, even as Liberals, still supported public ownership of certain utilities, such as the Post Office and Railways, so subsidisation has precedence.
The critique of wealth then resolves itself to the inevitable class warfare of limiting luxury to the ends of social need. In numbers, we may read statistics:
https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/luxury-goods/worldwide?srsltid=AfmBOopgIqhRGHhVKCQjVTufJOoyHQrr4uxthIhf-UhsC09flyephzi6#revenueThe total market revenue for luxuries is around $500B/y, which means $500B which can be re-distributed. The critique of wealth then begins negatively, where demand materialised in money is an active dis-possession of social wealth (all wise men, such as Lao Tzu, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus lacked money, by their own choice). Money then, is a negative magnitude (e.g. debt), as elaborated by David Graeber. The positive critique of wealth is in capital allocation, which if unregulated, leads to inherent inequality, which simultaneously expands the state, creating absolute political tyranny. The Ricardian revision would be to re-frame wealth contra value, but wisdom does not permit the things of consumption to be felt as inherently beneficial, either, and so if a society is determined productively, it is always attempting to gain from a permanent loss. Thus, the critique of wealth is in a way, a critique of civilisation.
The poets speak of a Golden Age, where men have no need of toil; where all things are given by Nature. This was evidently prehistoric, when Cronus ruled the heavens. May the titans overthrow the gods!