one percenters who make at least $600,000 a year—frequently complain of feeling poor and stretched. This is because they usually live around other one percenters. So they focus on what they don’t have compared to their peers. It leads these objectively rich people to believe that they are subjectively poor. Other research shows that our desire for influence is also at the root of violence. A large study of inner-city crime in Detroit found that the most common reason one man killed another wasn’t over money, drugs, or girlfriends per se. It was over status threats.
