Tolstoy has short story somewhat relevant to this: "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/

And a bonus anecdote:

"At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds,“Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . enough."