Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Hoarding, in clinical terms, is recognized as a mental disorder—characterized by the compulsive need to accumulate objects, an inability to discard them, and the resulting distress or dysfunction in daily life. A hoarder of newspapers, broken appliances, or trinkets is viewed as someone who needs intervention, therapy, perhaps even medication. The clutter is seen as irrational, self-destructive, and symptomatic of an unhealthy relationship to possessions. Society agrees: piling up “stuff” past any reasonable utility is pathological.

But shift the lens to money—especially when we’re talking billions—and suddenly the same pattern is applauded as ambition, savvy, or genius. A billionaire can sit atop more wealth than entire nations, wealth that can never be spent in a dozen lifetimes, and rather than seeing pathology, society builds shrines to their names on skyscrapers and universities. Somehow, hoarding tangible junk is a disorder, but hoarding abstract numbers in bank accounts is a marker of greatness. The hoarder in a small apartment is sick; the hoarder in a mansion is celebrated.

The irony is sharp. Both cases involve obsession, accumulation without utility, and a distorted sense of value. A hoarder of cash refuses to deploy it meaningfully—millions go unspent while communities crumble, workers struggle, and basic needs remain unmet. If a person hoarded sandwiches while people starved outside, we would rightly see it as twisted. Yet when it’s dollars, the behavior is reframed as the natural reward of capitalism.

Maybe it’s time to admit that compulsive accumulation, whether of knickknacks or capital, is a signal of imbalance. Wealth hoarding not only isolates the hoarder, it actively destabilizes society. The difference isn’t in the psychology—it’s in what we choose to excuse. And that says more about us than about them.