In 2006, Gallup asked a representative sample of American adults whether they had a strong desire to be rich. The results were interesting. Most Americans at the time had no such desire, and just half of those polled said that making more money was a major personal goal. Most surprising, perhaps, only about a third of the sample believed they would be happier if they were rich, contradicting the commonly accepted view that greater wealth leads to greater happiness.

Two years later, the Pew Research Center asked the same question to a representative group of American adults. Only 13 percent of the sample said that it was “very important” for them to be wealthy, an even lower percentage than that found in the Gallup survey. In fact, being wealthy finished dead last in respondents’ ranking of what they valued most in life. Having enough free time to do things one wanted to, being successful in a career, having children, being married, doing volunteer work, and living a religious life were all considered more important than getting rich.

Flash forward to 2022, when Harris Poll conducted what the research company called the Americans and Billionaires Survey. In this poll, six of every ten adults said they wanted to become not just a millionaire—the traditional benchmark of........

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