[Note: This is the Introduction to a book I wrote and then set aside many years ago. I titled it “The Principles of Wealth” because I wanted it to be – well, a little bit lofty and maybe even pretentious. I’m now back to revising it, and I’m going to be publishing chapters of it serially so I can (with your help) get some feedback that will help me get it ready for print.]
A Wealth Seeker’s First Conversation About Money
Step One: A Definition of Wealth
One can’t have a profitable conversation about wealth without agreeing upon a definition of the word. And that’s a more difficult task than it might seem. I did a brief scan of several of my Stone Age paper-bound dictionaries and found definitions that were redundant (e.g., “material prosperity”) and others that were circular (e.g., “the state of being rich”), but nothing of use.
Let’s consider two common misunderstandings about wealth:
Many people equate wealth with the accoutrements of wealth – a yacht, a Rolex watch, a million-dollar house. But if the owner of such things doesn’t own them outright, they are false signs. In fact, there are millions of people – probably tens of millions of people – in the US alone that have huge houses, big boats, and treasure chests of bling who are not wealthy. They may, in fact, be poor. Or broke. Or hopelessly in debt.
People also equate wealth with income – thinking that having a high income makes one wealthy. But every major city in the industrialized world is crowded with high-income earners that have no wealth and little likelihood of ever acquiring it.
I’ve been thinking about a definition since I started writing this book about 10 years ago. And although I haven’t found one that is perfect, I have come up with one that I like because it’s simple, useful, adaptable, and easy to remember:
Wealth is having more of something valuable than you currently need.
If you accept this pared-down definition, you will see that there are many forms of wealth.
There is wealth of knowledge, wealth of experience, wealth of friendship, wealth of spirit, wealth of optimism, wealth of patience, wealth of hope, and wealth of love – to name a few.
All of them, most people would agree, are valuable – even if some aren’t quite things.
So, having more than you currently need of something that has value – that’s one component of wealth.
But having more than you currently need means that these valuable things must also be things that can be stored.
You might say, for example, that you can be rich in happiness in the sense of having an abundance of it. But it would be difficult to argue that you could store a portion of that abundant happiness for a later time. Happiness is ephemeral. It comes. It goes.
Exploring the various forms of wealth is a discussion well worth having. It could easily take up a book, or a library of books. But my aim here is to focus on material wealth – and to consider the possibility that there are truths about material wealth and acquiring it that are universal.
Let’s begin with a discussion of what I think of as “the first principles of wealth” – the philosophical, ethical, and social considerations.
[Note: That’s the end of the Introduction to “The Principles of Wealth.” Please write with any questions, comments, or recommendations you may have.]
