
Ask HN: What is Wealth? - navanit
"What people want" is a common definition. Are there qualifiers to that we could flesh out? For example should we exclude things that people want simply because they believe others will want them more later (speculation)?
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edw519
Health.

Years ago, when my father was very sick, I made a stupid remark like, "Maybe
you can get some financial benefit from this." He responded, "I'd trade
everything to be healthy again."

Sometimes it takes extremely trying circumstances to really put things into
perspective. Ever since that conversation, I have never looked at the subjects
of health, wealth, or happiness in the same way.

~~~
csomar
You don't know the seriousness of the illness unless you get to that stage.
Losing a leg isn't as easy as it seems. Human has a very strong relation with
its' organs and he is very prudent/fearful about his health when he is ill.

~~~
Psyonic
Who thinks losing a leg is easy? It doesn't seem easy to me at all, it seems
absolutely terrible.

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tirrellp
I have always seen wealth as a function of time and choice.

I would echo the sentiments of thibaut_barrere, reasonattlm, and especially
bmelton (as it pertains to time and choice).

In other words, I would call myself 'wealthy' if I had the opportunity to do
what I want when I want to do it. I think in American society when we think of
wealth we think of Wall St Bankers with multimillion dollar penthouses in NY,
or we think of Ellison and his yachting, but I think we can boil it down to
time and choice.

Ellison can _choose_ to pursue yacthing as a passion because he is wealthy,
and the expense of that hobby is not a determining factor.

Gates can choose to spend his energies at philanthropy because the lack of
income and time constraints associated with that endeavor are not determining
factors.

For me, wealth would be 'the ability to follow curiosities and interests,
whatever they may be.' If I have a 9-5 job AND trying to get a startup off the
ground AND I have a family with young children, I am able to follow some of my
passions, but not all of them, because there are large chunks of my time that
I dont control.

~~~
metamemetics
> _wealth would be 'the ability to follow curiosities and interests, whatever
> they may be.'_

How would you differentiate between the terms wealth, freedom, and happiness
(or do you consider them interchangeable)?

I think from those 3, 'wealth' has the heaviest connotation of objective
comparability and applicability to organizations in addition to individuals.
(ex. a wealthy company or a wealthy country)

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thibaut_barrere
Wealth = how long you could sustain your current lifestyle (same expenses) if
your income stopped, today.

EDIT: what I like about this definition is that it is not subjective and
doesn't imply any need for comparison. As well, it conveys the idea that time
and mobility are the new currencies, which I believe.

(the definition I use; read it in a french book by Olivier Seban)

~~~
paolomaffei
What if you have a cushy job that earns you $100k / year working 4 hour a
week? (lifestyle business like Ferris like)

~~~
wdewind
Protip: No one has that (including Ferris).

~~~
patio11
There is at least one person on HN who credibly claims to have that, and I
know of a few software entrepreneurs who work about that much when in parking
mode.

~~~
wdewind
Mark Zuckerberg also exists.

------
bmelton
Carving pumpkins with my daughter.

Taking my family to the Renaissance Festival and not having to worry about the
cost of a Henna tattoo, or the cost of an elephant ride.

Time to sit down and play with the inner workings of celery, RabbitMQ, and
just how exactly am I going to be able to leverage the subtask module for some
high-latency network operations.

Vacations across the country, with the ability to go to Long Beach's quirky
downtown and pick up novelties for my wife without worrying about what else I
might be giving up later.

Taking my 8 year old daughter to breakfast and discussing how well her steak
and eggs were prepared.

This isn't much of an answer, but looking over the past few months, these are
the main reasons I enjoy making the money I make. The TV in my living room is
broken. I'm in no hurry to fix it. I drive a Jeep Wrangler, though I can
afford a much nicer car. I don't have to worry about the cost of gas (for
now), which means I don't have to live in dirty old DC, and can instead enjoy
being by the water in Annapolis.

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reasonattlm
My take:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/02/what-is-
wealth.ph...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/02/what-is-wealth.php)

"Wealth is a measure of your ability to do what you would like to do, when you
would like to do it - a measure of your breadth of immediately available
choice."

~~~
bartonfink
I've heard it phrased as "money doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy
options."

------
neilk
Why do you want to narrow the definition? What about it isn't working for you?

I'm going to guess that you intuitively feel that there is "good" wealth, like
a bicycle repair shop, and "bad", like speculating on housing prices.

The problem is that, at any given moment, you can't tell between the two --
they're both useful, and both have their places, and in some circumstances
both are useless and counterproductive to have around.

I think the difference happens when you consider how useful they are over
time. The bicycle shop is more useful in the set of all possible futures. Is
there a word for that?

~~~
hasenj
In my book, "bad" wealth (so to speak) would be any scheme for getting "money"
(the paper thing, or the number in your bank account) without actually doing
anything useful to anyone. For example, selling your shares in a bubble/ponzi
company at a high price.

Sure, these shares might have been something that someone wanted, but it's a
form of fraud. What you earned is what someone else ends up losing, for
nothing.

I also consider most financial endeavours under a debt-money system to fall
somewhere under the "fraud" category. This includes things like speculating on
currency and house prices, or anything where your primary activity is hacking
the monetary system.

~~~
neilk
I think we can all agree that fraud does not increase the general amount of
wealth. That's why it's illegal.

As for your last paragraph, it sounds like you are in the grip of that "money
as debt" video, or worse, the labor theory of value. You should also look at
some more mainstream economics before you decide that the whole thing is
fraud.

I'm sympathetic to your argument that some financial products are just
"hacks", and don't generate value, but just like real hacking, there's another
side. Such "hacks" expose weaknesses, inefficiencies, and irrationality. Now,
there are some who believe in the efficient market theory, and thus believe
that ANY self-interested economic action leads to an increase of information
(and thus wealth) for everybody else. That's actually been pretty much
empirically disproven, so it's true that there are certain financial "hacks"
that are never socially beneficial. However, I would caution you not to
conclude that the whole thing is just a drain on society.

~~~
hasenj
> it sounds like you are in the grip of that "money as debt" video

I wouldn't word it that way. The movie, whether you like it or not, raises
some valid points, and I think calling the whole system a debt-money system is
a good thing, at least it raises awareness about it's nature. Most people
don't have the slightest clue how money is made.

Not only that; but I think it's more accurate, factual, and honest to call it
debt-money rather than "fractional reserve banking". Fractional reserve can
have a different meaning: it could mean you lend out most of what people
entrust you with. That would still be a fractional reserve, because you're
only keeping a fraction of what's in your trust.

> but just like real hacking, there's another side. Such "hacks" expose
> weaknesses, inefficiencies, and irrationality.

These hacks are legalized and institutionalized, it's basically a whole
industry. It's very main stream stuff.

------
endtime
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth>

"Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions or the
control of such assets."

~~~
kgo
Right on. I was just going to link to wikipedia, but you beat me to it.

Wealth has a very specific, easily quantifiable definition. For an individual
or household, it's essentially your net worth. And you can actually have 'low
wealth' (a.k.a you're poor).

I wish I knew what the subtext of the original question was. Can I be wealthy
if I'm a school teacher or something like that?

If the question is really "What is wealthy?" I think Chris Rock's routine
about 'rich' vs. 'wealthy' is as good as any. Wealthy is the point where your
grandkids will never need to work a day in their life. Wealthy is getting
foundations and libraries named after you. etc...

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWERzwbobOk>

I'll never be wealthy, and I'm fine with that. I'd gladly settle for rich.

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jaekwon
In physics, energy is the ability to do work.

Wealth is the ability to do what you want to do.

I think wealth as money or futures contracts should be qualified as "potential
wealth" (as in potential energy).

I don't go by definitions that rely on money or definitions that rely on the
net worth of individuals. The power of money is not absolute. Net Worth is a
false measure in our nonlinear world.

"What people want" is only wealth to you if those people have what you want.

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dpatru
Wealth (what people want) can be divided into two subclasses: transferable
(money, property, ...) and non-transferable (health, comfort, experiences,
memories, fame, power, knowledge, ....) People generally use transferable
wealth to gain the non-transferable.

People can be classified based on their patience in turning transferable
wealth into non-transferable wealth. Wealth accumulators tend to be more
patient in trading on transferable wealth than wealth dissipators who tend to
immediately convert wealth into non-transferable form.

------
jacquesm
Happiness and health for you and those that matter to you.

If you don't believe that talk to a billionaire that just lost a loved one to
some disease.

------
AjJi
Related to your question: <http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

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ErrantX
Wealth is waking up this morning to a beautiful woman bringing me a cup of tea
made "just so".

Philosophical sure, but wealth is definitely dependant on personal
perspective.

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burningion
I have my own personal definition of wealth, which is "net contribution - net
consumption". The bigger the gap you can create, the greater the wealth you
experience.

Lasting wealth can only come from a pattern of giving much more than you take.

Simply making a habit of creating and contributing without looking at what you
get back is the first step. Then creating the pattern of minimizing your
personal needs is second. Managing risks and continuing to value things
intelligently comes final.

I don't define true wealth as a numerical value. I think merely appreciating
any moment in time can create true wealth.

However, I think us humans are builders and creators. We like to make new
things, and coincidentally, everyone I know who is happy creates things. So
no, I don't think you can be static, sitting on a pile of cash doing nothing,
and still feel "wealthy".

...But I may have something wrong with me. Or I just might not have met that
numeral that truly makes me feel wealthy. But then again, I am very skeptical
of the power of money to make me feel wealthy. I just like to use it as an
(inefficient) measuring stick.

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metamemetics
Wealth is the ability of an entity to create change.

Skills you know, your business network, your emotional support network, assets
you can exchange.

People with great wealth can affect the world in profoundly positive or
negative ways. In other words, wealth is closely tied to the notion of power.

A member of congress who has relatively low networth could have as much
financial influence as Bill Gates. While this power is not as liquid or easy
to exchange as cash, it is still exchangeable and a store of value.

[ To directly answer the OP: No we should not exclude speculation, everything
is speculation to some small degree. Even holding everything in cash is a
speculation on that nation's currency. We'd have to use other measures to
estimate expected security\longevity, like liquidity of assets. ]

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bearwithclaws
Wealth is having the freedom to do whatever you want to do.

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Loic
I think you will never have a good definition, because if the answer is "what
people want?" everybody want something different.

For my personal example, I do not have a lot (but a lot is here subjective) of
money, enough to buy what I want (but I am frugal) and this enough for me to
not think about money and have freedom of mind to think about my family, my
friends and my startup. No million dollars bank account, but wealthy of
experience, family with kids and friends (oh, and a lot of books, I love
them).

------
binarymax
According to Bucky Fuller, "Real wealth is ideas plus energy"

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mark_l_watson
Wealth is both having enough to do (mostly) what you want in life and enough
to help children and grandchildren if the need occasional help.

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bluedevil2k
Wealth = freedom. Freedom to do what you want, when you want to be happy. For
some people, that freedom is the ability to take your kids to/from school
every day, coach their sports teams, and go on a yearly vacation. For others,
it's to buy expensive cars, live in big houses, and go on crazy trips. Totally
different in terms of money, but the same in wealth.

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Kaizyn
Wealth is an abstract noun encompassing all of the physical objects that are
considered a store of value that one may possess. Of course now that some
abstract entities like information or promissory notes also have monetary
values attached to them, they too can be considered as wealth.

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nandemo
You cannot exclude things that "people want simply because they believe others
will want them more later". Money is one of those things. If an oracle told
you the American empire will crumble tomorrow, you'd do well in getting rid of
all your US dollars.

Speculation is underrated.

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jscore
Shaquille O'Neill is RICH

Guy signing his checks is WEALTHY

\- Chris Rock

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RockyMcNuts
Ability to pursue higher levels of the Maslow hierarchy without fear for your
basic safety and physical needs.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs>

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flipbrad
for me, wealth is potential for future freedom from constraints on life
choices. Money is one format, relationships, friendships and favours owed are
another; education also counts, as do health, fitness and certain key
possessions (but not so many that dealing with them constrains you; thus
actually, very few, and mostly of a tool-like nature). Some of these things
are not distinct, exclusive goods, but can be shared or copied amongst large
groups. Focusing on doing so without being distracted on needlessly stocking
(maximising) the un-shareable (distinct) parts of wealth, is a productive way
forward for humanity.

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Maro
In the new Wall Street movie, Gordon Gecko says the most valuable asset is
time.

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ericlc
It depends on your circumstances. If you're on your death bed, you want more
time. If you are sick, you want health. If you are hungry, you want food.

I guess it all boils down to what people want, but it's different for
everybody.

------
kristofferR
Being rich is having money. Being wealthy is having time. \- Margaret Bonnano

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noodle
wealth is the freedom and ability to do what you want with your time.

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known
Wealth = Money + Power

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metachris
It strongly depends on the perspective. I think many people would define
"wealth" as not having to go to bed hungry and being able to send kids to
school.

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JonathanWCurd
The ability to spend time doing what one loves is what I consider the point at
which you can say one is truly wealthy.

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mkr-hn
Wealth is reading a thread asking what wealth is and seeing all the
interesting variations on the same answer.

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rblion
Wealth is well-being or quality of life. That accounts for your mind, body,
and relationships..

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lwhi
Wealth is an abundance of freedoms.

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yewweitan
Wealth is anything and everything that has potential future value.

Making wealth is tapping into that value.

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makeramen
I like to think of it as how much you are worth to society (including
yourself).

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cvg
Wealth is the future value of resource and human labor inputs that you
control.

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jamesbh
When your ability to produce is much greater than your ability to consume.

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wanderful
The ability to do what you want, when you want to do it.

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davidmathers
utility * scarcity

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sabat
Not having any logical reason to worry about money. Meaning that you have
enough money so that should you care to set things up the right way, you'll
likely have enough income to live where ever you want for the rest of your
life. Happiness and health are another matter, but without money, it's
difficult to have either of those things.

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unwantedLetters
This might not exactly answer the question, but it points out an interesting
distinction between being rich and being wealthy.

Chris Rock on Wealth: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY>

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noverloop
The ability to satisfies ones needs.

The entire economy is built around providing individual humans with the means
to satisfy their needs.

