RE: What is wealth?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of David Hobby Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 7:11 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? Dan M wrote: ... O.K., let me try. There is such a thing as concrete wealth. Wealth lets an individual do things that they want to do. So a person's individual wealth would be roughly defined relative to some standard as the ratio of the utility of what they can do to what they could do in the standard state. I think this is closest to what I think. But, I think that this is a fundamental and difficult enough concept to start slowly with some obvious examples. First, I was think of and will focus on the wealth of nations, communities, the world, more than individual wealth. ... So, historically, a richer nation would have vast areas of fertile farmland that could be harvested year after year to provide food for people. That wealth could be stolen by force, but absent of that, the wealth existed there. So, Italy was far wealthier than a corresponding area in Siberia, because far more food could be grown. ... involved) is somewhat arbitrary. But, the availability of human effort expended in something other than subsistence farming is not subjective; it can be objectively measured. ... Dan-- O.K., you agreed mostly agreed with me, and I mostly agree with you. Some of it is a matter of interpretation: We're both taking the usual meaning of wealth, and trying to clarify it. I had planned to get the total wealth of a country but adding up the individual wealth of its inhabitants (and of its institutions, too?). So starting with individual wealth made sense to me. Do you think that the wealth of a (inhabited) country would be different than the sum of the wealths of its inhabitants? Well, there is always the wealth in the publicly owned infrastructure, oil and mineral wealth on public lands that need to be added. But, my argument for looking at the state instead of the individual was mostly the same as Plato's reasons for writing the Republic as he did. I think that a country that has more than enough food for its people may be wealthier than a country where everybody has just enough. Even if they can produce the same total amount of food. Sure, people can be a source of a country's wealth. But starving peasants may not be worth that much, wealth-wise. So there's more to it then just food production? Yes, definitely. But, I think the first step is the ability for the average workers to produce more food than is needed to feed their family unit. If, for example, it takes 100 families working to feed 105 families, then there is only 5 families that can be engaged in any trade except subsistence farming. If, as it is true in the US, less than 1% of the labor force is required to produce food, then the rest of the labor force is able to produce other things. Clearly, the US is far wealthier when it has a 5% surplus harvest than a country that produced a 5% surplus harvest because there was war the previous year, and a lot of townspeople died. (An interesting site on this is http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/WellBeing/farmhouseincome.htm Particularly the table farm household income by source. Here you see most farm households farm part-time, and have most of their income come from other sources...like friends of mine who have 50 head of cattle on their ranch, but live in town 5 days a week and hold two jobs). Unless you want to define free wealth and bound wealth. The free wealth of a land of starving peasants may be almost zero. Most of it being bound up in maintaining the large number of inhabitants. A suitable plague could release the bound wealth of the country by reducing the population. There are several terms that are typically used. They are national income, national per capita income, and disposable/discretionary income. Clearly, Monaco, although its citizens are wealthy, has far less economic clout than the US. But, clearly, the average Chinese citizen is far poorer than the average Australian, even though China has 4x the GDP of Australia. Then, we have to consider disposable income. Since China has so many people, a significant fraction of the country is still barely above subsistence, even with the increased GDP. Indeed China is particularly susceptible to global recessions because its income is so tied to exports (only 35% of Chinese GDP is domestic consumption vs. 70% for the US). Before the Great Depression, the US was by far the biggest exporter, as well as the biggest holder of world debt. It was the hardest hit country in the Great Depression. I've been reading articles that hint that there is causality here, and that China (and to a lesser extent Germany and Japan) are particularly susceptible to downturns. The US hoped to export
Re: What is wealth?
It's based on a number of things, but I think the single item that stood out for me was the male life expectancy: 59.2 years. 25 years ago, it was over 70 years (at least officially). This drop is absolutely amazing. Demographers have Russias population reducing to under 70 million by 2050. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
Demographers have Russias population reducing to under 70 million by 2050. Wow, that's about 4 per sq. km. And with China around 140 per sq. km., maybe dropping a bit to 125 per sq. km by then, just to it's south, that's a problem waiting to happenespecially with the male/female disparity in China (1.13 males/females under 15). It might be cowboys and Indians time again, with a strong China pushing to take over land (or at least push for very favorable trade terms) from Russia. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
Hi Dan, I am interested to hear what your basis is for saying that Russia is falling out of the developed world. It's based on a number of things, but I think the single item that stood out for me was the male life expectancy: 59.2 years. 25 years ago, it was over 70 years (at least officially). This drop is absolutely amazing. Women fare much better, average life expectancy is 73.1 years or so, but this high death rate among men indicates a tremendous, debilitating underlying problem. Alcoholism gets most of the blame here, but that level of alcoholism is truly staggering. Second, Russia's economy had been in a free-fall from about 1980 to 2000. Living standards had dropped tremendously. Recently, due to oil and gas production, the per GDP has risen noticeably, but the increasing control of Putin over everything reminds me of Venezuela and Iran. It's as Thomas Friedman stated, central controlled one trick pony economies do not develop well (e.g. Iran, Iraq, Nigeria), while diversified ones (e.g. Taiwan, South Korea) do. With the drop in oil prices, Russia's hurting now. While the US, European, and Asian stock markets have dropped tremendously, it's nothing compared to the 75% drop in Russia seen this year. Third, Russia isn't/can't take care of the relatively few children it does have. According to the Wikipedia article on street children, Russia has 2-4 million (the Russian official number is 700k, but they also state that they do not have an AIDs problem...and 700k isn't peanuts). For a country of 140 million, with about 20 million children, this translates into 10-20% of all children. Fourth, Russia built its status on military might and international control/influence. The countries behind the Iron Curtain were set up to trade in a way highly favorable to Russia, for example. It was the enemy of the US, and was able to contest the US from Viet Nam to Cuba. Now, its military might is minimal. Its soldiers are experienced, which is worth something, but its equipment is decaying. On paper, it has a tremendous nuclear arsenal, but in reality the launch success rate would be very low. Indeed, in Security Studies, a detailed analysis has concluded that there is a high probability that the US now has a first strike capacity against the Russia (note, the article went on to discuss possible destabilizing results from this, so it wasn't considered a plus for the US in the article). The Russians easily handled the small country of Georgia. But, based on how it handled that, the Ukraine may give it a decent battle. Star Wars and the Afghanistan war were the beginning of the long slide in military power. Finally, its death rate is about 50% higher than its birth rate. While that is not inherently indicative of dropping out of the first world, the fact remains that it's a dying country, and a dying country that does not take care of its children to boot. If we do find alternatives to expensive ($90/barrel) oil, Russia will have no basis for its economy. At that point, one real geopolitical risk is a strong China will see an empty Russia to its north, with great potential for farming as global warming opens up farming areas. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Demographers have Russias population reducing to under 70 million by 2050. Wow, that's about 4 per sq. km. And with China around 140 per sq. km., maybe dropping a bit to 125 per sq. km by then, just to it's south, that's a problem waiting to happenespecially with the male/female disparity in China (1.13 males/females under 15). It might be cowboys and Indians time again, with a strong China pushing to take over land (or at least push for very favorable trade terms) from Russia. I've long thought war over Siberia is the most likely next use of belligerent nukes. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M said.. So, we are within a decade of this type of drastic drop in poor country populations being confined to Sub-Sahara Africa. Fertility rates are falling around the world, but nowhere so drastic (besides Russia which is falling out of the developed world) as in the highly developed world outside of the US. Hi Dan, I am interested to hear what your basis is for saying that Russia is falling out of the developed world. Regards, Wayne Eddy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: -Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of Olin Elliott Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:05 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? Wealth can be defined in evolutionary terms. Whatever enhances your health, your security, your status or your power in the group is wealth. In other words -- in a state of nature -- anything the possession of which improves your reproductive fitness. That is the ultimate basis of the concept of wealth, and all our elaborations and abstractions don't change that much. What about the facts, would they change things much? :-) I think there is some viability in the sociobiological argument that wealth increases the attractiveness of men as mates. But, if you look at the selfish gene as an embodiment of sociobiology, you see that wealth has had a paradoxical effect. Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of the US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, Germany and Italy) far below replacement. The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). I tend to think that is a pretty simple manifestation of the Demographic Transition. Children are a net asset in poorer countries (they can be put to work, can support you in old age, etc.). In richer economies, children are a luxury good that cost you a lot and deliver no economic return, hence you will tend to have fewer of them. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL zwil...@zwilnik.com Linux User #333216 The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe. - H.L. Mencken ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of David Hobby Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:52 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? Dan M wrote: ... Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of the US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, Germany and Italy) far below replacement. The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). ... Dan-- Sad to say, that remains to be seen. Once wealth has been equalized across the world, then it's reasonable to count numbers of descendants. Its true that its impossible to predict the future, but we've had 50 years of trends, and that's worth something. IIRC, baring some technological breakthrough that will allow folks to live far longer fairly soon, the die is cast for the decline of Europe and Japan. Take Japan as an extreme example. It's somewhat unusual in that it has a double population peak in 2008. The first on is 55-59, the second 35-39. 30-35 is close to 35-39, but then it drops off fast, ending up with 0-4 only half of 35-39. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of females are either out of or leaving the age range of fertility. (65% are 35 or older). As a result, baring a drastic immediate cultural change, the aging and then decline of Japan's population is all but written in stone. The EU as a whole is not as dramatic, but it should expect to see a 20% or so decline in population every year. So, it would take a massive change in attitude to reverse this. The single shining counterexample to all of this is the US, which I'd argue is a unique multicultural country. Second, mass disease/starvation still exists, but it's mostly in Africa. The largest two countries (China and India) have done a great job of pulling themselves out of abject poverty over the last 20 years. China has gone from a per capita income (inflation adjusted dollars) of $1700 to $7600 over that time. That's not rich, but factors of almost 5 are nothing to be sneezed at. India has not done as well: $1100 to $3700, but that's still better than a factor of 3. I remember (maybe you are too young to) the massive starvation in India in the '60s. Now, there is still extreme poverty there, but there is not the same risk to human life. So, we are within a decade of this type of drastic drop in poor country populations being confined to Sub-Sahara Africa. Fertility rates are falling around the world, but nowhere so drastic (besides Russia which is falling out of the developed world) as in the highly developed world outside of the US. A couple of caveats, to be sure. Still, summary info can be made from data. The world will be far less Japanese and European in 100 years than it is today. And it is far less Japanese and European today than it was 100 years ago. Finally, are you thinking about a possible/probable collapse of civilization? That's one possibility that I had not addressed here. Dan M. If the poorer countries wind up with huge population crashes on the way to global equality, then having fewer children who were better off financially may turn out to have been a good reproductive strategy. : ( ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of Kevin B. O'Brien Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 9:00 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). I tend to think that is a pretty simple manifestation of the Demographic Transition. Children are a net asset in poorer countries (they can be put to work, can support you in old age, etc.). In richer economies, children are a luxury good that cost you a lot and deliver no economic return, hence you will tend to have fewer of them. You know, if you took this and the first statement of yours I responded to as axioms, you could probably put together a system in which both A and ~A are both provable statements. (This was considered a big negative when I took math and logic). :-) So, I think you have to pick one of the two statements you made and reject the other. Or, say that both have some impact, but are not nearly as universal as you've portrayed. Indeed, while I think the latter statement has some truth, the data don't really fit it as a sole explanation. Russia's birth rate fell as its economic conditions fell. There were far fewer births in the Great Depression as there were in the post WWII prosperity. The US has a far higher birth rate among college educated women than Japan does. My suggestion is that sociobiology is a viewpoint to be used, among others, and that it is not a simple explanation. But, unlike others on the list, I do think partial understandings can be helpful. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: -Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of Kevin B. O'Brien Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 9:00 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). I tend to think that is a pretty simple manifestation of the Demographic Transition. Children are a net asset in poorer countries (they can be put to work, can support you in old age, etc.). In richer economies, children are a luxury good that cost you a lot and deliver no economic return, hence you will tend to have fewer of them. You know, if you took this and the first statement of yours I responded to as axioms, you could probably put together a system in which both A and ~A are both provable statements. (This was considered a big negative when I took math and logic). :-) So, I think you have to pick one of the two statements you made and reject the other. Or, say that both have some impact, but are not nearly as universal as you've portrayed. Indeed, while I think the latter statement has some truth, the data don't really fit it as a sole explanation. Russia's birth rate fell as its economic conditions fell. There were far fewer births in the Great Depression as there were in the post WWII prosperity. The US has a far higher birth rate among college educated women than Japan does. My suggestion is that sociobiology is a viewpoint to be used, among others, and that it is not a simple explanation. But, unlike others on the list, I do think partial understandings can be helpful. I don't think this is contradictory at all. When a wealthy country undergoes a temporary economic change, does it change the social expectations and norms? I don't think so. That would require prolonged long-term change. So during the Depression, you did not see people suddenly sending their kids out to work in the factories, etc. Now, if you were to make a permanent change in the American economy that reduced us to a standard of living typical of a peasant economy, that would probably result in eventual change in our social structure and expectations. But I would expect that to take a few generations at the very least. And as far as I know, there has not been an example of any country actually running the demographic transition in reverse. The examples you cite are perfectly consistent with a society that views children as a luxury good. One ought to find that the consumption of luxury goods goes down during economic downturns. The fallacy here is that you are confusing long-term and short-term effects. The Demographic Transition is a model of a long-term shift in social norms about children under the influence of rising incomes as economies develop. When applied cross-sectionally to countries at different stages of development, it matches up pretty well with the data. You are trying to falsify it by applying the model to short-term fluctuations in economies with relatively fixed social norms, which the model was never intended to explain in the first place. Normal economic theory is quite sufficient there. (As a side note, short-term fluctuations are what standard economic theories handle best. Supply and demand really do work pretty well in the day to day stuff. It is when you get to questions of long-term growth and development that things get a little murkier.) The change process is gradual in the other direction as well. When a poorer economy begins to develop, the death rate falls due to better nutrition, better health care, etc. but the birth rate does not, immediately, fall at all. That is one of the reasons for exploding populations in other parts of the world. It usually takes several generations for people's behavior to adjust, and then the birth rate starts to fall. So you can have equilibrium, roughly, at either a low income level, with high birth rates and high death rates, or at high income level, with low birth rates and low death rates. During the transition between these equilibria, you get exploding populations. Now, I want to make clear that I am not primarily a demographer, so there may well be more recent research on this topic. But when I was in graduate school, the data seemed pretty consistent with this model, and it was generally accepted among economic demographers. I was exposed to it primarily by my interest in development economics. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL zwil...@zwilnik.com Linux User #333216 Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished. -- Jeremy Bentham
Re: What is wealth?
There are two authors who have a decent handle on historical wealth. Azar Gat is one of them, http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf Gregory Clark is the other, one http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf If you prefer hearing to reading, try here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYspzYiX_kg Keith Henson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of David Hobby Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:22 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? Dan M wrote: After the discussion about money as a social construct, it occurred to me that that there is something more fundamental underlying this. It is whether wealth is concrete or just an abstract concept. Dan-- O.K., let me try. There is such a thing as concrete wealth. Wealth lets an individual do things that they want to do. So a person's individual wealth would be roughly defined relative to some standard as the ratio of the utility of what they can do to what they could do in the standard state. I think this is closest to what I think. But, I think that this is a fundamental and difficult enough concept to start slowly with some obvious examples. First, I was think of and will focus on the wealth of nations, communities, the world, more than individual wealth. Second, I see two layers of wealth, the first being more obvious than the second. I'd define wealth in terms of resources, first the resources that people absolutely need, and second, the resources that people want, but can do without. For the first, I'd argue for food, clothing, and shelter. I was thinking of medical care, but (for all practical purposes) doctors contributed minimally to the prolonging of life before the advent of modern, science based medicine. They could, for example, do virtually nothing in the face of the Black Plague. So, historically, a richer nation would have vast areas of fertile farmland that could be harvested year after year to provide food for people. That wealth could be stolen by force, but absent of that, the wealth existed there. So, Italy was far wealthier than a corresponding area in Siberia, because far more food could be grown. Second, and this is near to my heart...but I don't see it as inherently a bias, wealth is a function of knowledge and ability. The combination of the horse collar and three crop rotation tremendously increased the fundamental wealth of Europe. Why? The horse collar did because one horse could replace two oxen to plow land. Thus, the amount of food needed to be spent on feeding the plow animal decreased by more than a factor of two. This wealth, in food, was a true increase. With the same conditions, the same weather, there was far more food for people to eat. As a result, a given plot of land could support more human life. Since it didn't take more effort to use the horse than the pair of oxen (probably less), human labor was available for other endeavors. Craftsmen could exist, trading their wares for the surplus food. The nature and distribution of these wares is a subject unto itself, and the desirability of the output of this craft vs. that craft (particularly when aesthetics are involved) is somewhat arbitrary. But, the availability of human effort expended in something other than subsistence farming is not subjective; it can be objectively measured. Three crop rotation also increased wealth. In a sense, it is one of the purest forms of intellectual property, because that idea was a multiplier for the worth of the land. Far more food could be grown over decades using this technique than the older technique. This, the idea itself is seen as a significant contribution to wealth. I'll stop here for, hopefully, comments. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: What is wealth?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of Olin Elliott Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:05 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: What is wealth? Wealth can be defined in evolutionary terms. Whatever enhances your health, your security, your status or your power in the group is wealth. In other words -- in a state of nature -- anything the possession of which improves your reproductive fitness. That is the ultimate basis of the concept of wealth, and all our elaborations and abstractions don't change that much. What about the facts, would they change things much? :-) I think there is some viability in the sociobiological argument that wealth increases the attractiveness of men as mates. But, if you look at the selfish gene as an embodiment of sociobiology, you see that wealth has had a paradoxical effect. Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of the US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, Germany and Italy) far below replacement. The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
On Dec 12, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Dan M wrote: I think there is some viability in the sociobiological argument that wealth increases the attractiveness of men as mates. But, if you look at the selfish gene as an embodiment of sociobiology, you see that wealth has had a paradoxical effect. Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of the US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, Germany and Italy) far below replacement. The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). In short, affluenza affects reproduction. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: ... Look at the wealthiest countries in the world. With the exception of the US, they have fertility rates below replacement, some (like Japan, Germany and Italy) far below replacement. The countries with high fertility rates tend to be poorer. Thus, wealth is anti-correlated with the probability a person's gene marker will be seen in a given member of the Nth generation after one's own (which is a standard measure of sociobiological fitness). ... Dan-- Sad to say, that remains to be seen. Once wealth has been equalized across the world, then it's reasonable to count numbers of descendants. If the poorer countries wind up with huge population crashes on the way to global equality, then having fewer children who were better off financially may turn out to have been a good reproductive strategy. : ( ---David A Modest Proposal ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: ... O.K., let me try. There is such a thing as concrete wealth. Wealth lets an individual do things that they want to do. So a person's individual wealth would be roughly defined relative to some standard as the ratio of the utility of what they can do to what they could do in the standard state. I think this is closest to what I think. But, I think that this is a fundamental and difficult enough concept to start slowly with some obvious examples. First, I was think of and will focus on the wealth of nations, communities, the world, more than individual wealth. ... So, historically, a richer nation would have vast areas of fertile farmland that could be harvested year after year to provide food for people. That wealth could be stolen by force, but absent of that, the wealth existed there. So, Italy was far wealthier than a corresponding area in Siberia, because far more food could be grown. ... involved) is somewhat arbitrary. But, the availability of human effort expended in something other than subsistence farming is not subjective; it can be objectively measured. ... Dan-- O.K., you agreed mostly agreed with me, and I mostly agree with you. Some of it is a matter of interpretation: We're both taking the usual meaning of wealth, and trying to clarify it. I had planned to get the total wealth of a country but adding up the individual wealth of its inhabitants (and of its institutions, too?). So starting with individual wealth made sense to me. Do you think that the wealth of a (inhabited) country would be different than the sum of the wealths of its inhabitants? I think that a country that has more than enough food for its people may be wealthier than a country where everybody has just enough. Even if they can produce the same total amount of food. Sure, people can be a source of a country's wealth. But starving peasants may not be worth that much, wealth-wise. So there's more to it then just food production? Unless you want to define free wealth and bound wealth. The free wealth of a land of starving peasants may be almost zero. Most of it being bound up in maintaining the large number of inhabitants. A suitable plague could release the bound wealth of the country by reducing the population. ---David The Dismal Science, Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Wealth is making $100 more than your wife's sister's husband, according to H.L. Mencken. I think he's on to something there. To me, the basic definition is that it is a measure of well-being. It has many dimensions. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
At 12:01 PM Thursday 12/11/2008, Nick Arnett wrote: Wealth is making $100 more than your wife's sister's husband, according to H.L. Mencken. I think others have suggested that it's making more than your wife can spend . . . Don't Shoot The Messenger Maru . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Unimaginable wealth is a child finding a real silver dollar. Actual wealth is never picking up a dropped quarter. Financial stability is looking at the dime as you think of your two choices. Absolute poverty is remembering where the hole in your trousers is as you bend at the knees to pick up that penny. Vilyehm **Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dpicid=aolcom40vanityncid=emlcntaolcom0010) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Wealth can be defined in evolutionary terms. Whatever enhances your health, your security, your status or your power in the group is wealth. In other words -- in a state of nature -- anything the possession of which improves your reproductive fitness. That is the ultimate basis of the concept of wealth, and all our elaborations and abstractions don't change that much. Olin - Original Message - From: Ronn! Blankenshipmailto:ronn_blankens...@bellsouth.net To: Killer Bs Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: 12/11/2008 3:58 PM Subject: Re: What is wealth? At 12:01 PM Thursday 12/11/2008, Nick Arnett wrote: Wealth is making $100 more than your wife's sister's husband, according to H.L. Mencken. I think others have suggested that it's making more than your wife can spend . . . Don't Shoot The Messenger Maru . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: After the discussion about money as a social construct, it occurred to me that that there is something more fundamental underlying this. It is whether wealth is concrete or just an abstract concept. One way to ask it is whether the world is actually wealthier than it was 100 years ago; whether the US is? A second is to ask who creates wealth and how do they create it? I have some strong opinions on this, but I hoped that I could stimulate a discussion by first throwing out the questions before I weigh in with my long winded thoughts. :-) Wealth is a stock variable. The related flow variable is income. The relationship in general is that income that is not consumed constitutes an addition to wealth. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL zwil...@zwilnik.com Linux User #333216 Q. What do you get when you cross a Mafioso and a deconstructionist? | A. Someone who makes you an offer you can't understand. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is wealth?
Dan M wrote: After the discussion about money as a social construct, it occurred to me that that there is something more fundamental underlying this. It is whether wealth is concrete or just an abstract concept. Dan-- O.K., let me try. There is such a thing as concrete wealth. Wealth lets an individual do things that they want to do. So a person's individual wealth would be roughly defined relative to some standard as the ratio of the utility of what they can do to what they could do in the standard state. Very crudely put, wealth equals relative happiness, but I didn't say that. I can fly to New Zealand, so I'm wealthier than I would have been 500 years ago. Although there are no moa there now, which I'd count as a loss of wealth. One way to ask it is whether the world is actually wealthier than it was 100 years ago; whether the US is? A second is to ask who creates wealth and how do they create it? I have some strong opinions on this, but I hoped that I could stimulate a discussion by first throwing out the questions before I weigh in with my long winded thoughts. :-) So by my definition, most people would agree that the world and particularly the US is wealthier than it was 100 years ago. A lot of wealth creation is caused by invention and the development of those inventions. So even the lowly consumer contributes to the creation of wealth? ---David Mining gold, however, does not create much wealth. Most people only want gold because everybody else does. Even if we all had large piles in our front yards, we wouldn't be able to do much more because we had it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
