We explain what wealth is in the economic, natural and personal aspects. We also tell you what it means to “generate wealth” and how it is measured.
What is wealth?
Wealth, in general terms, It is the abundance of resources. Whether it is goods and things, moral and spiritual values, or any other reference, wealth is always the opposite of scarcity and poverty. It is a word from Gothic reiksa voice that in the language of this ancient Germanic people meant “powerful.”
Wealth can be thought of as both an individual matter and a collective one, that is, belonging to a group. Thus, people or countries with the greatest accumulation of available resources are called “rich,” while those devoid of these elements are called “poor.” Which does not mean that within a rich country there cannot exist, paradoxically, poor people.
In areas other than economic The word “wealth” is also used as a way to indicate the relative abundance of some valued element.. Thus, for example, a person can have “intellectual wealth,” if we consider that he or she is cultured and has many references; Or an experience can awaken “emotional richness” in us if it leads us to experience many different emotions.
They are synonymous with wealth: abundance, excess, ease, opulence, fertility. On the contrary, they are their antonyms: poverty, misery, lack, absence, scarcity, scarcity.
See also: Purchasing power
Economic wealth
In the economic field, wealth is understood as the availability of usable resources of a person, an organization or a countryand in the contemporary world this is expressed through available money, that is, monetary units that express accumulated value. In this context it is synonymous with “heritage”, “capital” or “finance”.
Thus, one must differentiate between:
- Gross wealth: the sum of the monetary value of all available assets, that is, the sum of the value of all the goods, capital and assets that one possesses.
- Net wealth: the accumulated value obtained once debts or liabilities have been settled.
What does “generate wealth” mean?
In the field of economics, wealth is not given, but must be made or generated. That is, it is obtained as a result of different types of actions or investments, whether of time, effort and/or capital, which results in a state of greater availability of resources than at the initial moment.
Although the methods and planning necessary to generate wealth are always the subject of study, debate and questioning, both in today's world and in previous times, The most common thing is to understand the generation of wealth as the result of workthat is, the production, distribution and marketing of goods and services, in such a way that the result has a value greater than that of the elements necessary for its production.
For example, the value of a chair, once finished by the carpenter, sent to the store and purchased by the consumer, is much greater than the cost of the wood, iron and leather necessary for its manufacture.
More than the issue of how to generate wealth, the question of how to distribute it or how to use it to make the world a more just, equitable and virtuous place has been the subject of debate between the different schools of economic philosophy.
How is economic wealth measured?
The economic wealth of a person It is expressed in monetary units, that is, in sums of money. for this We first proceed to calculate the assetsthat is, the sum of all available goods and assets, both tangible and intangible, and debts and liabilities are deducted from the resulting figure.. This means that if that person decided one day to sell absolutely everything they own, they would obtain said total amount as a reward, and therefore that is their wealth.
However, it is more complicated to do the same with nations and human groups. In these cases, wealth is normally measured through indicators that allow comparisons to be made between the resource generation capacity of entire countries or regions. Such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP or PBI) or the Gross Domestic Product per capita (that is, by dividing it by the number of inhabitants).
The calculation of this indicator is quite complex, since it takes into account the total production of goods and services of a country, to express it in a figure (usually millions of dollars). With the latter, the economic performance of a country can be studied, for example, comparing it with that obtained in previous years, or with that obtained in the same period by other countries in the region.
Wealth and poverty
Wealth and poverty are antagonistic concepts. The first is associated with abundance and the second with precariousness and scarcity, so that the first is a desirable state and the second one that makes existence complicated. Even so, the parameters for determining when wealth exists and when poverty exists are usually not entirely exact and universal.
In general, wealth is understood as the availability of resources beyond what is immediately necessary to survive, and Poverty is defined as the inability to achieve a minimum amount of essential resources.
Thus, for example, a rich person is one who has many more resources than he or she needs to survive, and therefore can indulge in luxuries and make riskier life choices. On the other hand, a poor person is one who does not have the necessary resources to survive or who barely manages to get close to that necessary amount, and who therefore lives a life of lack, absences and effort.
Natural riches
When we talk about natural wealth, we generally refer in a more or less vague way to the totality of the exploitable natural resources available in the territory of a country or in a specific geographic region. These resources or wealth serve as raw materials for different industrial and productive processes, and may be renewable or finite, but they support the economic foundation of each nation.
Thus, for example, a nation exploits the soil to obtain food, the subsoil to extract minerals, oil and precious stones, and its waterways for fishing, sports and tourist recreation. All these elements arranged by nature and the geological history of the planet constitute its natural wealth, that is, its economic resources of natural origin.
Inner wealth
The term “inner wealth”, as well as “spiritual wealth”, is commonly used in the areas of self-help, psychology and morality, to refer to the complexity and abundance of the internal world of each individual, that is, to the amount of knowledge, values, reflections and intuitions that a person has and that make life more enjoyable, pleasant or acceptable.
Inner riches do not necessarily have to do with worldly riches (such as economic wealth), and it is possible, therefore, for a very wealthy person to have a spiritual poverty that makes their existence more painful. The inner wealth It is the fruit of the cultivation of the spirit, which is done through religious, social, intellectual and emotional practices.that is, through cultivating the internal world.
Continue with: Quality of life
References
- “Wealth” on Wikipedia.
- “Wealth” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Information about Wealth” in the Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary.
- “What makes a nation rich?” in La Pluma Económica of the University of San Buenaventura of Cali (Colombia).
- “Beyond GDP, how is the wealth of a country measured?” in Politics, economics and power (Argentina).
- “Inner wealth” by Conchi Aguilera in El Correo de Andalucía (Spain).
