[secede] -- greed
As Hobbes observes, the natural state of man is nasty, brutish, and short. Wealth allows us to escape this hell. Money can purchase electricity, indoor plumbing, antibiotics, and refrigeration, miracles that our ancestors could never have dreamed of. In this way, money *can* buy happiness.
Curiously, however, almost every philosophy and religion in the world cautions against the love of money. In some traditions, poverty is not only not a sin, but something to be positively pursued. The poor are said to be especially close to God.
Taken to their logical extremes, both approaches have problems. Poverty destroys the dignity of the human person. The animal search food, water, and shelter leaves no room for friendship, art, music, literature, and religion — the things that make us truly human. If we own nothing, we cannot be happy. At the same time, money can never satisfy because we can always have a dollar more. If the game is to get rich or die trying, we will always die trying.
To thread this needle, Church Fathers like Ambrose espouse “contempt of riches”. If pursuing virtue means that we must lose money, then we do so. If pursuing virtue means that we must gain money, then we do so. Virtue, not money, is the goal. Money may be an effect, but never a cause, of our actions.
As with most things in Christianity, this is easier said than done.