You seem to have forgotten "the window" in the argument, separating a single participant from "society" (aka the Congolese people). If you accept that you only

You seem to have forgotten "the window" in the argument, separating a single participant from "society" (aka the Congolese people). If you accept that you only care about "the Congolese people" then the author's conclusions make a lot of sense. Except that they don't quite work without the window, which removes the needs of a single participant from the society to be optimized. A general conclusion like "wealth is toxic" cannot be made without explaining why the window is still in place. I don't think it's spending that hurts society. What hurts is if a single person spends so much above average that it notably drains the number of workers still available to serve the needs of everyone else in that society.