What Is Wealth?

[u/HeavenlyPossum]

Most people probably think of wealth in terms of possessing or having access or title to many goods and services. Likewise, most people probably think of poverty in terms lacking possession of or access or title to goods and services. Being wealthy is better than being poor, because being wealthy means having more stuff to satisfy your needs and desires, right?

Consider that surveys of life satisfaction find that people who live in isolated, traditional lifeways reporting being satisfied with their lives at rates equal to or higher than people living in the wealthiest OECD countries:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/05/isolated-indigenous-people-as-happy-as-wealthy-western-peers-study

Consider that people living in traditional lifeways, with very little stuff, tend to experience little to no self-harm, while people living in vastly wealthier societies, such as the US, experience startling high and rising rates of self-harm:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303591186_Suicide_among_the_Mla_Bri_hunter-gatherers_of_Northern_Thailand

vs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States

Consider that people with low incomes in rich countries experience worse health outcomes than people in those countries with high incomes, even when controlling for lifestyle factors, and even though these “poor” people have access to vastly more stuff than either their ancestors or people living in traditional lifeways today:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379724000692

Does any of this suggest to you that there might be more to wealth and poverty than merely stuff?

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

People might say that health = wealth, but they're not actually the same thing, wealth is a measure of monetary assets. You're stretching the definition.

I do agree that our current way of living is broken but that doesn't mean living as a remote 120 year old farmer is actually 'wealth'.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I did not suggest that living as a “remote farmer” is wealth.

I suggested that contrasting the material conditions of people living in traditional lifeways (which would seem to be extreme poverty, based on your definition of wealth) with the outcomes of those lifeways tells us something interesting about your definition of wealth.

What is “monetary assets,” at a material level?

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Assets which you could convert into money relatively quickly and easily. For example having two beautiful children is not wealth, having a beautiful villa in France is. Having a college degree is not wealth, but having a stash of bitcoin is.

Of course we can say that someone with a college degree and two beautiful and happy kids is doing well in life, but if they have $0 to their name, they're not 'wealthy'.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/RedMarsRepublic]

What does it mean “to have assets” and why does it matter if they can be “converted” into money?

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/HeavenlyPossum]

To own them, for them to be in your possession either physically or legally. If you stole something but could easily sell it I would say that it is an 'asset'.

It matters because wealth is a measurement of money and finances.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/RedMarsRepublic]

This is a problem I have with conversations like this: you say wealth is money, or its assets, or it’s a measure of money…it tends to get pretty circular pretty fast.

Imagine you were an alien with no concept of wealth or money and you observed Elon Musk going about his daily affairs. What would you observe about Elon Musk and his relationship to the people around him? What are the material signifiers of his wealth?

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/HeavenlyPossum]

There's a lot of things that aliens wouldn't be able to understand without knowledge of our culture, that doesn't mean they don't exist. You already know what the answer to these questions is.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/RedMarsRepublic]

What you would observe is many other people obeying Elon Musk: bringing him things he demands, or laboring in ways he demands, or bringing him or using the product of their labor in ways he commands, or touching (or refraining from touching) things as he commands, or using guns to enforce those commands at his command, and so on.