Wealth

Wealth is a concept generally agreed to be the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions, or the control of such assets. While "wealth" is considered to be an ambiguous and nebulous term, it is a concept that nonetheless has an important place in economics.

More specifically wealth can be defined as a claim on, or command of, resources (commodities, capital equipment, time, physical labor, et cetera) that have the potential to make the individual's existence easier, more comfortable or more enjoyable (i.e. "better") than it would be in the absence of such things.

Because value is subjective, wealth cannot be measured cardinally, but it is possible to measure ordinally.

Links

• "Money vs. Wealth" by Robert P. Murphy, June 2010
• "What is Wealth Inequality?" by Art Carden, May 2003
• "The Fantasy of Wealth Redistribution" by Lorenz Kraus, November 2010
• "Obama's Wealth Destruction" by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., February 2009
• "Real Bills, Phony Wealth" by Robert Blumen, June 2005
• "Destroying Capital with the Printing Press" lecture by Doug French, January 2011 (published as Mises Daily "Merger Monday and the Destruction of Wealth" here)
• "What is Wealth?" by Robert LeFevre (YouTube)
• What is Wealth?

• Wealth at Wikipedia