it's not even because of them being rich. it's because of their relations to the means of production, and their deliberate destruction/waste of surplus good in order to drive up prices and maintain a falling rate of profit. We literally produce more than enough for everyone to be "rich." It's a problem of private property and distribution, rather than a problem of production. That's what sucks the most. All rich people seem to be under the impression that Socialism is about lowering the standard of living for for the bourgeoisie in order to raise the standard of living for the proletariat. The truth is nobody's standard of living would even need to decrease if the bourgeoisie didn't protect their antiquated system with violence and wastefulness. It is the constant waging of class war by the bourgeoisie that necessitates class war on the part of the proletariat. We could quite easily transition to a system that provides for everyone if the bourgeoisie would just let go of the profit-driven system, but they are afraid not just of becoming poor, but of the poor becoming rich, like them, under socialism. It is the disparity they wish to maintain, even if it ends up with them being king of shit mountain.

Steinbeck said it better than I could:

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”