I like the point that you took away from the parable. However, most of the time someone shows me a parable like this it is to criticize the modern capitalist, c

I like the point that you took away from the parable. However, most of the time someone shows me a parable like this it is to criticize the modern capitalist, consumptionist lifestyle. These critics idealize the primitive and believe that economic progress has made us corrupt and unhappy (although, strangely, you never see them moving to any of the primitive countries they idealize). Rarely do they understand the full consequences of the ideas they support. Nothing makes me angrier than the anti-materialists except maybe the legions bitching about income-inequality, which strangely often are the same people.