What is Wealth?
Table of Contents
Civilized nations are still unenlightened and ignorant!
The word “wealth” designates an indefinite quantity of objects bearing inherent value such as:
- of land, of metal, of coin, of grain, of stuffs, of commodities.
- landed securities, bills, notes of hand, and the like
- This is because they contain obligations to deliver things with inherent value.
In fact, wealth can only exist where there are things possessed of real and intrinsic value.
And so the highest branches of knowledge are very far giving all the advantages of wealth.
Perhaps their perfect application is reserved for the 19th century.
In moral and physical science, superior minds explain important truths within the reach of the humble man.
In the ordinary occurrences of life, instead of then being guided by the false lights of a transcendental philoso- phy, mankind will be governed by the maxims of common sense.
Opinions will not rest on gratuitous assumptions, but be the result of an accurate observation of the nature of things.
Thus, habitually and naturally ascending to the source of all truth, we shall not suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by empty sounds, or submit to the guidance of erroneous impressions.
Corruption, deprived of the weapons of empiricism, will lose her principal strength, and no longer be able to obtain triumphs, calamitous to honest men, and disastrous to nations.
Wealth is proportionate to the quantum of that value; great, when the aggregate of component value is great; small, when that aggregate is small.
The value of a specific article is always vague and arbitrary, so long as it remains unacknowledged.
Its owner is not a jot the richer, by setting a higher ratio upon it in his own estimation.
But the moment that other persons are willing, for the purpose of obtaining it, to give in exchange a certain quantity of other articles, likewise bear- ing value, the one may then be said to be worth, or to be of equal value with, the other.
The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing, is called its price. Current price, at a given time and place, is that price which the owner is sure of obtaining for a thing, if he is inclined to part with it.
The knowledge of the real nature of wealth, thus defined, of the difficulties that must be surmounted in its attainment, of the course and order of its distribution amongst the members of society, of the uses to which it may be applied, and, further, of the consequences resulting respectively from these several circumstances, constitutes that branch of science now entitled Political Economy.
The value that mankind attach to objects originates in the use it can make of them.
- Some afford sustenance
- Others serve for clothing
- Some, as houses, defend them from the seasons
- Others gratify their taste or vanity
- Both of these are species of wants which include all mere ornaments and decorations.
When men attribute value to any thing, it is in consideration of its useful properties; what is good for nothing they set no price upon.
I call “utility” this inherent fitness or capability of things to satisfy the various wants of mankind.
- Its real value originating in its utility
- The value of the tax that the government thinks fit to exact, for permitting its manufacture, transport, or consumption.
To create objects with utility, is to create wealth.
The utility of things is the ground-work of their value. Their value constitutes wealth.
There is no wealth production without a creation or augmentation of utility.
How is this utility produced?
Objects, however, cannot be created by human means.
Nor is the mass of matter, of which this globe consists, capable of increase or diminution.
All that man can do is, to re-produce existing materials under another form, which may give them an utility they did not before possess, or merely enlarge one they may have before presented.
So that, in fact, there is a creation, not of matter, but of utility; and this I call production of wealth.