Wealth & Money Quote by Doug Coupland

A neat little landmine disguised as self-help: Coupland’s line flatters your ambition while indicting it. “You can never become rich unless you like rich people” isn’t really a tip about networking; it’s an x-ray of the psychic bargains modern capitalism demands. The sentence hinges on “like,” a word that sounds harmless but implies allegiance. To become rich, you don’t just need strategy or luck - you need a soft spot for the class you’re trying to join, a willingness to see them as admirable rather than obscene.

Coupland came up chronicling late-20th-century North American life, where identity is stitched to brands, status markers, and the anxious performance of “normal.” In that world, money isn’t only a resource; it’s a moral story people tell themselves. Disliking rich people keeps you morally clean, but it also keeps you outside the gates. The quote suggests that resentment can function like a veto: if you frame the wealthy as villains, you’ll sabotage opportunities that require their approval, mentorship, or simply your own ability to speak their cultural language without gagging.

The darker subtext is assimilation. “Like” becomes a prerequisite for entry because wealth is a club with taste codes, social rituals, and a shared mythology about merit. Coupland’s punch is that upward mobility often asks you to revise your ethics - not in a dramatic, Hollywood corruption arc, but in small, daily acts of accommodation: laughing at the right jokes, excusing the right excesses, calling it “success” instead of “inequality.”