By now, most people are aware of the sad pathology of the hoarder. These are the sad and lonely individuals who we see on the news or on heartbreaking reality televisions shows who lived in houses jam packed with the often worthless items which they compulsively collect. Old newspapers, scraps of cloth, broken toys, and a myriad of other items considered by most of us as being worthless junk. And all stacked to the ceiling in every inch of their home, to the point where all that is left is a narrow path between the piles to allow for access to basic necessities. And worst of all, any and all attempts to help them by removing any of their hoard, no matter how filthy or terrible their living conditions have become because of it or how their unsanitary homes hurt others, is met with unrelenting, irrational, and impenetrable resistance.

These people’s tragic stories and how they reflect the dangers of a society built around acquisition, accumulation, and consumption, are part of the public consciousness now.

But there is another kind of hoarder, one far less tragic and innocent, who is just as compulsive and illogical and unreasonable, but who instead of being doomed to a lonely and terrible existence far out of society’s light, finds instead that their pathology leads to the very height of society’s esteem.

The difference is that this second group of people does not hoard trash, they hoard cash. They don’t collect animals and pets, they collect people in positions of power. And they don’t ruin houses and apartment , they wreck nations and economies.

They are the money hoarders, and their pathology is a constant threat to freedom, democracy, and the values we all hold dear, and we cannot count of them to seek a cure on their own.

We have to bring the cure to them.

In order to understand this public diagnosis, we first must delve a little deeper into what makes the hoarders we are all familiar with live like they do, and what drives them to do what they do.

The key pathology of hoarding is a deep and desperate addiction to the feeling of increasing one’s hoard. All other pleasures are distantly subsidiary to this all consuming addiction. The key word is MORE. More, more, more, always more.

The concept of “more” implies within itself the idea of the hoard itself. You cannot have the concept of “more” without an idea of how much you currently have. From this deduction, it is clear to see how this desire for “more” becomes radically destructive when it becomes so dominant. In order to constantly have more, your hoard must grow and grow, and if the need is so strong that is blots out all other considerations, then, like any addiction, it will soon supersede concerns of personal health, safety, family, public life, social responsibilities, and the effect one’s behaviour has on others.

Hence the sad and lonely life of the hoarder. As their disease takes over more and more of their life, everything else is pushed out, both physically and psychologically.

And as the desire for “more” overwhelms the rest of the personality, this simple desire creates its own perfect antithesis : the terror of “less”.

To a deeply sick hoarder, there is absolutely nothing worse than “less”. This cannot be emphasized too strongly. To a hoarder, absolutely anything that would reduce the side of hoard is far, far worse than death. As the disease progresses, the hoard becomes not only the hoarder’s only source of pleasure but also their own source of identity. They completely lose the ability to distinguish between themselves and their hoard. Hence, any suggestion of removing any part of their hoard meets the kind of deep animal-level terror and resistance that always occurs when our identity is threatened.

To lose the slightest part of the hoard is to lose a part of oneself. And the response to that kind of threat is always violent, irrational, and total.

Now apply this to the modern day money hoarder. They acquire, and display, material wealth far beyond any reasonable use for it. For them, their bank balance is their old newspapers, their empty paint cans, their piles of discarded pizza boxes. It is the hoard which much always grow larger, and never ever ever grow even the slightest bit smaller.

And nothing else matters. Not their family, neglected in favour of the pursuit of “more”. Not personal relationships, fur these are all filtered through the desire for “more”. Not responsibility to others, for such an aggressive and powerful disease allows for no competition of needs. And certainly not any ties to something as vague and remote from self as a nation of origin.

This is why this class, these One Percenters, so violently resists the slightest notion of any kind of tax increase, no matter how small. Like all desperate addicts, they are devoted to the object of their addiction with a fervor matched only by religion devotion. And like all fanatics, they cannot tolerate the slightest desecration of their golden idol.

There is no tax level they will accept. There is no tax break they would turn down. They are addicts, junkies, with a deadly disease that precludes any and all fine moral reasoning. They are, essentially, ethical infants.

So for all the elaborate protestations of moral indignity and declarations of the sacred rights of money, their position basically boils down to that of a poorly raised toddler screaming “No! No! They are my toys, and nobody else is allowed to touch them! I won’t share and you can’t make me!” at his or her kindergarten class.

So don’t be distracted by the bright lights and fancy language that the One Percenters can afford. It is nothing but smokescreen, no more real than the Wizard of Oz and his big shows.

Pay attention, instead, to the morally stunted little men and women behind the curtain, and see them for the pathetic ill-behaved spoiled children that they are.

And be prepared to teach them a lesson by taking their candy away if they continue to refuse to share.