There's one important question you've forgotten to ask: what exactly are the wealthy investing in the growth of? The answer, of course, is the production and sale of consumption goods, either directly or indirectly - all of their investment returns have to come from there eventually. Take that away and you'd just be left with a bunch of investors trying to make money from selling other investors ways to make money from yet more investors, in a mass of ponzis and swindles producing no real economic output.
