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In principle, almost all middle class and even lower middle class Americans are exceptionally wealthy by any objective standards in comparison to the level of wealth available to the vast majority of human beings throughout the world. The mere availability of clean running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, heat, air conditioning, refrigeration, automobiles, quality food, and cable television would be considered extreme "wealth" in most of the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, because the prevailing concept of personal wealth is relational rather than absolute or defined by the objective benefits and conveniences of modern life in the developed world, most Americans take for granted the lifestyles, benefits, conveniences, and opportunities available to them in modern American society. In the early 20th century, for just one typical example, the wealthiest Americans enjoyed the thrill of automobile excursions because the first cars were so expensive that they denoted wealth and privilege. However, as soon as the first mass transportation systems and more affordable automobiles made traveling more available to the masses, weekend drives to remote areas previously available much more exclusively to the wealthy lost their attraction to the wealthy.

Precisely because wealth in modern society is an illusory concept defined more by the subjective value of whatever is unavailable to others of lesser means, a century later, the American preoccupation with relative wealth and acquisitive success resulted in the creation of the housing market real estate bubble in 2008. Instead of appreciating their perfectly nice modern homes, millions of Americans defined "success" and "wealth" purely by comparing their homes to the larger more expensive homes available to them through fraudulent manipulations of mortgage and loan documentation. The catastrophe that resulted was directly attributable to the preoccupation with comparative wealth and acquisitive success in America.