Firevalt Blog - Personal finance and entrepreneurship

Is Wealth Bad?

February 16th, 2006

Many people believe that the ambitious pursuit of wealth is evil and greedy. I believe that wealth creation is inherently good and improves our society. It’s important to distinguish, however, between the desire to create wealth and the craving for more money. Paul Graham explains the distinction between wealth and money:

“Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money… Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.”

Seeking and creating wealth is the process of growing the whole economic pie, not taking pie from others so our portion is bigger. Making money is the by-product of adding something valuable to the economy. If we seek to add value to the economy either through our jobs or entrepreneurial endeavors, we’ll make money. When we recognize that the money we make is a result of the value we’ve provided to the economy we’ll be satisfied with our efforts, appreciate our money more, and be better stewards of the money we make.

If, on the other hand, just making money is the ultimate goal, the process of actually providing value will be overlooked and deemed unnecessary. Get-rich-quick programs and pyramid schemes will become enticing and our desire to make money will undermine our ability to add economic value. I believe many of those schemes make a few richer at the expense of making the whole “pie” smaller. Would we be satisfied if the money we make represents our cunning ability to pull the wool over people’s eyes?

Wealth is not evil. The desire to accumulate and add to your wealth is not wrong if your motives are correct. America’s free market capitalism makes it possible for everyone to increase their wealth at no one else’s expense. The key is to seek that wealth by delivering value to the economy and by being responsible stewards of the money we earn. By responsibly managing our money we’ll be even more enabled to grow the economic pie and help others add to their wealth.

Entry Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Firevalt