‹ Back

Money & Wealth: How Much is Enough and the Poverty Question?

Many Kenyans will remember a moment from the 2022 presidential debates.

                      Journalist: “How much is enough?” — referring to the politician’s land and wealth accumulation.

                      Politician: “Enough is enough.”

This exchange, though brief, was widely hailed as courageous — particularly Eric Latiff’s willingness to put the question directly to the then Deputy President, William Ruto, who would later go on to win that election. Yet beneath the moment of applause and apprehension lay a deeper, still unresolved question: What does it mean for wealth to be “enough”?

To answer that question, we must distinguish between wealth as accumulation and money as an economic instrument. In classical economic theory, money is said to perform three primary functions: it serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Over time, a fourth, less formal but socially potent role has emerged: money as a signal of status, success, and power.

Alongside classical economic theory, an evolutionary psychology lens offers another lens into this conversation. In the evolutionary settings in which human beings developed, status, power, and control over resources carried clear survival and reproductive advantages. Those who occupied higher rank or commanded greater resources tended to enjoy more security, more influence, and greater opportunity to pass on their lineage.

It is therefore no surprise why in contemporary societies, money has become the most efficient vehicle through which these status-seeking drives are expressed.

Money, in itself, is a profoundly useful social construct. It enables exchange of value among strangers, reduces transaction costs, allows specialization of talent, and supports complex human cooperation at scale. It is one of humanity’s most powerful coordination tools.

However, when money becomes not only a medium of exchange but also the primary channel through which status, dominance, and social ranking are pursued, its function subtly — yet decisively — shifts. Accumulation ceases to be primarily about meeting needs or facilitating cooperation and becomes a competitive signal of worth and superiority.

At that point, inequality is no longer merely an unfortunate by-product of economic activity; it becomes structurally embedded. Status signalling requires visible hierarchy — winners and losers. For money to function as a marker of success and power, there must, by definition, be those who visibly lack it.

At KFSE, we are not arguing against money, ambition, or even the human drive for status. Rather, we are asking whether societies can evolve alternative, socially constructive pathways for meeting these deep psychological needs without producing the underside of abject poverty.

This requires deliberately disentangling money’s transactional function from its dominance-signalling role, and expanding other forms of socially rewarded status—such as contribution, technical/scientific skills development, service, creativity, caregiving, and community leadership.

If evolutionary drives are inevitable, then the ethical challenge of modern society is not to suppress them, but to redirect them in ways that affirm human dignity, preserve social cohesion, and prevent poverty from becoming the collateral damage of status competition.

                                 Ethical Pathway to the question of “Enough”

To be sure, the question is not whether wealth creation is legitimate. It is whether there exists a definable threshold beyond which accumulation shifts from necessity to signalling. KFSE holds that personal wealth accumulation is fully legitimate up to the point at which a household’s lifetime economic security is secured. Beyond this threshold, continued accumulation no longer advances financial stability but increasingly serves status or dominance signalling. At that stage, wealth is better directed toward social contribution rather than competitive display.

One might then ask: how is a household’s lifetime economic security threshold determined? In practical terms, lifetime economic security can be understood as the level of net productive assets required to sustainably support a household’s consumption needs across its remaining lifespan, without dependence on ongoing labour income. Using conservative financial assumptions, this threshold is reached when a household’s asset base can reliably generate its annual consumption through long-term, inflation-adjusted returns.

A household reaches its Economic Security Threshold (EST) when:

                  Net Productive Assets × Sustainable Real Return ≥ Annual Household Consumption

For a household with monthly consumption of Kshs 100,000 (Kshs 1,200,000 annually), the Economic Security Threshold depends on the assumed real rate of return. Under different real return scenarios, the required asset base is as follows:

Real Return (Nominal return – Inflation)
3%	≈ Kshs 40 million
4%	≈ Kshs 30 million
9.5%	≈ Kshs 12.63 million

 

The table illustrates a crucial point: the EST is highly sensitive to real return assumptions. The higher the sustainable real return, the smaller the asset base required to achieve financial independence.

The EST framework offers households a disciplined benchmark for strategic investment planning. It defines a concrete target for financial independence and enables households to align their asset allocation, return expectations, and long-term savings strategies toward achieving durable economic security. Beyond this point of sufficiency, the logic of accumulation shifts: resources are now redirected toward social contribution rather than continued status competition.

In this way, the EST transforms “enough” from a rhetorical question into a measurable financial milestone. It allows financial ambition to operate within principled boundaries — first securing stability, then enabling contribution toward the less fortunate in the society.