I speak and listen to a lot of people and I know that there is a common idea that rich people or wealthy people are somehow ‘bad’: egoists, do not care about others, greedy, etc…etc…
Like all generalisations this is a generalisation :) and, as such, is a untrue statement. Every generalisation is untrue: each of us is different: in our approach to life, to money, to spirituality, to values.
In our own human fragility, we are all unique in the way we perceive reality.
What I know though is that when we are struggling for survival, to get food on the plate, and to help and protect the people we love most, when we act out of desperation, we are more likely to act in ‘non-spiritual’ ways, because we have lost faith. When we act out of desperation we act out of fear, therefore we have lost faith.
[Desperation is not a nice place to be. Desperation comes from lack of faith in the fact that the Universe always provides, this is my understanding and my experience, if we look at the roots of our emotional state, we will notice that at a certain point in our life we have lost hope and fear became our driving (or paralysing) force.
Going back to applying spiritual principles and establish a contact with God - if you believe in God - or with Hope (in the latter what I am writing here applies in the same way - no worries) is that if a person is in a position where all their basic needs are met, and they are still spiritually bankrupt, they will need /be obliged to look for ‘something else’, they will have to look for meaning and fulfilment (no amount of money does guarantee that), so they will have to look for God or find Hope. By the application of spiritual principles (like rigorous honesty, integrity, faith, hope, etc…) and of the techniques associated with it, they will find meaning and purpose (which are two words meaning 'being connected').
So regardless if you are rich or poor, or in the middle class [which is being squeezed, by the way, - again the subject of another post] the application of spiritual principles is the answer.
The spiritual principle of faith knowing that when we apply spiritual principles we will develop spiritually and our reality will change - being reality a reflection of our inner world - is the key one here.