THE MEANING OF WEALTH
Now that economics is definitely focusing attention upon problems of national prosperity, it is important that the student should understand clearly the leading concepts of the science before proceeding to study its literature. The leading concept is that of wealth, but this is a term with two distinct but closely related meanings. In the first place, it is the name of a condition of well-being, in which sense it is not very different from the Saxon term weal, from which it is descended. In the second and more usual sense, wealth is the collective name for a category of goods. Goods are the means of satisfying desires, but not all goods are wealth. Only those goods are wealth upon which the satisfaction of desires depends in a very special and practical sense. People desire air, sunlight, and a number of other things which do not constitute wealth. But if they not only desire a thing, but desire more than they have, or more than there is to be had at once, then that thing is wealth. Their state of satisfaction is definitely affected by the question of more or less of this thing. More of it, more satisfaction; less of it, less satisfaction. Though we could not live at all without air, yet we do not ordinarily desire more than we have. There is enough to go around and satisfy everybody. We should not notice the difference if there were a little less. If special conditions should arise in any time and place where there was not enough air for everybody, so that people should desire more than they had, air would then and there be wealth.
Wealth may also be defined, tentatively, as the name of those goods upon which weal or well-being depends, in this immediate and practical sense. If our weal is increased by having more of a certain class of things, and decreased by having less of them, those things therefore constitute wealth. They become the objects of conscious and active human desire and therefore of conscious and active human endeavor. More bread, more weal; less bread, less weal. Because we can say that, bread is wealth. Broadly speaking, everything to which we can apply that formula in any time and place is then and there wealth. Nothing is wealth which cannot be brought under that formula.
This statement calls for one qualification, namely, that men may not know upon what their weal or well-being depends. That upon which they think that their well-being depends they will regard as wealth. In other words, if they desire a thing, and desire more of it than they have, that indicates that they think their weal, or state of satisfaction, would be increased by having more of it. The fact that they want more, and try to get it, either by producing or purchasing it, indicates that they regard it as wealth, or as the means to well-being. Therefore it sometimes happens that the student is compelled to include some things under wealth which he regards as not only useless but deleterious and immoral—the means of satisfying vicious appetites, such as opium, tobacco, and alcohol. If one were to make much of this qualification, he would probably choose to divorce the word wealth from well-being, and define it as scarce means of satisfying desires.
Any of these definitions will be found to harmonize perfectly with another that has had some currency, namely, that wealth is the collective name for all goods which have value or power in exchange; for only those things which are desirable and scarce will have power in exchange, or value. In fact they are evaluated, bought and sold, solely because they are scarce and some one wants more than he has.