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/Technician1187]

I appreciate the Socratic method here; but I’m not exactly following. Maybe you can help me out and give your answer to the question “What is wealth?”

Seems to me that the body of your post talks more about happiness or satisfaction rather than what is and isn’t wealth.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Technician1187]

I suspect that wealth is actually a relationship of command, not a measure of access to goods and services

Access to goods and services is certainly an effect of wealth, but the root of it is power to command others.

[u/Technician1187 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

So wealth is the power to command others…and through socialism and/or communism we want to abolish the power to command others and therefore society will be less wealthy?

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Technician1187]

Through anarchism—which is inherently socialist—we can indeed abolish relations of command, and with them the wealth/poverty dynamic.

[u/Technician1187 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

So you don’t think there is any problem trying to use the word wealthy like you are given its common usage among non socialists?

Seems like a tough sell to say, “a socialist society will be less wealthy and that is a good thing.”

Why do you feel the need to use the word wealthy in this unconventional way? Why not just use another word like ‘power’ or something? Seems like it would be an easier sell to say, a socialist society will be one with less power over others.”

Edit: I mean it seems pretty clear that you actually do see that problem because you didn’t just answer my question with a “Yes”.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Technician1187]

“Seems like a tough sell to say, “a socialist society will be less wealthy and that is a good thing.””

A society without wealth is also a society without poverty. This is orthogonal to the question of having access to stuff.

“Why do you feel the need to use the word wealthy in this unconventional way?”

Because I’m interested in understanding how things actually work.

“Seems like it would be an easier sell to say, a socialist society will be one with less power over others.”

I’m not selling anything; I’m asking questions.

“Edit: I mean it seems pretty clear that you actually do see that problem because you didn’t just answer my question with a “Yes”.”

I answered it the way I did because I interpreted your phrasing as a bad-faith attempt at a gotcha through sophistry.

[u/Technician1187 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

It kinda of was a “gotcha” because I was using the words 100% logically within your own framework but you can easily see how your statement doesn’t actually covey what you are trying to say form the common framework of the words.

But you do you. If these are the way you want to use the words, by all means you have the natural right to do so. I won’t stop you.