> As a private citizen your goal is to optimize the amount of money you make
Ok.
I'm interested in why you think this is the goal of citizens (but not of government).
To be clear: I don't believe this should be the goal of government. I don't really understand why this should be the goal of citizens. I've emphasised the term "should" here, which is a somewhat odd moral term in general, but if we're applying a "should" to government to differentiate them from private citizens, there needs to be a symmetrical. Optimizing individual wealth is certainly an emergent goal of specific individuals, but I can't think of a reason to broadly apply a moral "should" to this goal. If we're optimising for positive outcomes at a system/global/community level (which is generally the intent of wanting a functional government), then encouraging citizens to hoard wealth has not tended to be (positively) contributory to such outcomes.
This is the definition of capitalism. The system is set up this way. Of course as a human you're not completely embodied by the system and you clearly have beliefs and philosophies different from the "system".
But you cannot deny that you as an individual are HEAVILY influenced by the system can culture you live in. Status is equated to those who have the most money. Regardless of yourself as an individual, in aggregate this is how people behave and a good basic universal model that predicts behavior. But additionally outside of culture, the logistical reality of the society we live in is that money is the basis of survival. All of our morals and philosophies are thrown out the window the minute when we are poor or if we have no money and we do need money to buy food to eat. So money and business is not only a status thing but it forms the basis of survival as well.
This is not about your beliefs or morality. This is about the practical reality. In addition to this, capitalism so far is the the only known effective system to create modern economies of scale. We tried to make things fair, ideal and utopian with communism, but, practically speaking, we haven't seen it work.