I’ve always seen high monetary wealth as a symptom of lacking actual wealth. More people should start treating it like that too. Keynes has an interesting quote about this too, by the way, in his piece “The Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”. He says that those pursuing money for money’s sake should be seen as semi-mentally ill.
Our greatest wealth is the amount of time we have, and the opportunity to wake up with meaningful purpose. Capitalism and GDP measurements have removed that. It's no small irony that the "wealthiest" are miserable. Their endless pursuit of wealth is a repeated dead end. Real wealth is in connection and kindness. Lifting someone else lifts you, too.
"There are many phrases … in English at least … that begin with the phrase, “wealth of’.”
One thing we need a wealth of today is a wealth of prudence.
Not ordinary prudence. A special kind of prudence. Fiduciary prudence.
The prudence that guides the exercise of the capacity that Pensions & Endowments derive from their legally constituted capacity as large, programmatic and self-perpetuating social trusts, in undivided loyalty to their legally constituted aims, to invest money for income as well as safety to assure income security in a dignified future to so many, directly, as a private benefit, that it is also to us all, consequently, as a public good.
That prudence has been lost in prevailing fiduciary practice, to the calculus of profit extraction from volatility and growth in market clearing prices for securities in the markets for maintaining volatility and growth in market clearing prices for those securities.
In that calculus, consequences are externalized so that profits can be maximized.
But that is not prudent, because that externalization is externalized onto us. Which impairs our physical and social wellbeing, while increasing their piles of money.
Not a prudent formula for social cohesion.
We need a new math for fiduciary finance, a mathematics that values prudence, authentically.
I had a Georgist lose their composure with me when I used a post-Keynesian understanding of wealth in their presence. Now, I avoid the word wealth because each school of thought has a different understanding of what it means. They can't even agree if money is wealth.
Adding another definition reminds me of the story of the US military using 400 programming languages (it could have been as many as 1,000), which made it difficult to maintain their code. To resolve this, they created the Ada programming language to unify development. So, they then had 401 programming languages.
Your historical dive into ‘weal’ showed how we’ve lost something vital in our growth obsessed culture and the degrowth vision you propose, where wealth means connection, health, and a thriving planet, feels like the only sane path forward. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve always seen high monetary wealth as a symptom of lacking actual wealth. More people should start treating it like that too. Keynes has an interesting quote about this too, by the way, in his piece “The Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”. He says that those pursuing money for money’s sake should be seen as semi-mentally ill.
Our greatest wealth is the amount of time we have, and the opportunity to wake up with meaningful purpose. Capitalism and GDP measurements have removed that. It's no small irony that the "wealthiest" are miserable. Their endless pursuit of wealth is a repeated dead end. Real wealth is in connection and kindness. Lifting someone else lifts you, too.
"There are many phrases … in English at least … that begin with the phrase, “wealth of’.”
One thing we need a wealth of today is a wealth of prudence.
Not ordinary prudence. A special kind of prudence. Fiduciary prudence.
The prudence that guides the exercise of the capacity that Pensions & Endowments derive from their legally constituted capacity as large, programmatic and self-perpetuating social trusts, in undivided loyalty to their legally constituted aims, to invest money for income as well as safety to assure income security in a dignified future to so many, directly, as a private benefit, that it is also to us all, consequently, as a public good.
That prudence has been lost in prevailing fiduciary practice, to the calculus of profit extraction from volatility and growth in market clearing prices for securities in the markets for maintaining volatility and growth in market clearing prices for those securities.
In that calculus, consequences are externalized so that profits can be maximized.
But that is not prudent, because that externalization is externalized onto us. Which impairs our physical and social wellbeing, while increasing their piles of money.
Not a prudent formula for social cohesion.
We need a new math for fiduciary finance, a mathematics that values prudence, authentically.
Tha math is equity paybacks.
Well said sir. I may have to write an essay on prudence now.
I had a Georgist lose their composure with me when I used a post-Keynesian understanding of wealth in their presence. Now, I avoid the word wealth because each school of thought has a different understanding of what it means. They can't even agree if money is wealth.
Adding another definition reminds me of the story of the US military using 400 programming languages (it could have been as many as 1,000), which made it difficult to maintain their code. To resolve this, they created the Ada programming language to unify development. So, they then had 401 programming languages.
Your historical dive into ‘weal’ showed how we’ve lost something vital in our growth obsessed culture and the degrowth vision you propose, where wealth means connection, health, and a thriving planet, feels like the only sane path forward. Thank you for sharing.