Wealth is not money, though most of us have learned to associate the two.
An easy way to see the difference is to think about what we do with money. At the most basic level, we buy food, clothing and shelter so we can survive and be secure in a sometimes harsh environment. Beyond those basics, we buy things we enjoy such as cars, vacations, smart phones, furniture, etc. We may plan for our future needs and save money for our retirement or for a child’s college education.
All of these things comprise our standard of living, and money is the means we use to acquire it. In our society, the more money we have, the higher the standard of living we can enjoy and the longer we can maintain that standard of living.
Wealth is our capability to maintain a given standard of living for a given amount of time.
In the usual context of our lives, money gives us that capability because the things we need can be readily exchanged for money. We can make a run to the supermarket and buy the food we need, but that only works where there is a system in place where money can be exchanged for food.
Buckminster Fuller liked to illustrate this point with a parable about a billionaire on a sinking ship. The billionaire has brought all of his money with him on the ship, piles of cash, stock certificates and gold. The ship is sinking because of a fire and all the lifeboats have been burned up. Once the ship has sunk, he’s swimming in the ocean with his money in a bag — the gold threatening to drag him down — when he sees a man with an inflatable life-preserver nearby. “I’ll give you a billion dollars for that life-preserver”, the billionaire calls out to the man. “No, thank you” replies the man, “I’ve got everything I need.”
The moral is that money is not wealth, and I suppose a second moral would be that sometimes wealth, in the form of a life preserver, comes to you by chance.
I would add that wealth could have been delivered more reliably, to more passengers, by a forward-thinking person outfitting the ship with fireproof lifeboats.
