[kjshsh123]

There's a finite amount of money. There's not a finite amount of wealth.

Having lots of wealth does not mean other people have less. If that were the case, there'd be as much wealth today as there was 1000 years ago. Making a company and having it valued at whatever value, does not remove that amount of wealth from other people.

[Supermancho]

Not trying to argue, per se. I'm saying that you gave me a lot to think about.

> There's not a finite amount of wealth.

I think there is a finite amount of wealth, at any given time, same as "money". Money is a transactable medium to measure value, rather than as a type of good on its own. The medium can change region to region and over time.

Wealth is an aggregate of all valuables you possess, including expected gains. Wealth is also subjective, because of these properties. People agree on some approximations for the purposes of transactions with money.

> Making a company and having it valued at whatever value, does not remove that amount of wealth from other people.

Depends on perspective, I would say. When the value rises in a public company, even when it's just the expectation, you have people dumping their wealth (as money) into the company. So yes, it does for large public companies. While it does grant some rights, in a practical sense it's a hole you dump money into with the expectation that you can reach in and take out some amount in the future. I can understand this is what is envisioned, when people talk about wealth as zero sum. I don't agree, but I get what they are going at.

> If that were the case, there'd be as much wealth today as there was 1000 years ago.

Wealth is partially based on expectation. The growth in population fuels increases in wealth, because that's the part of the equation that is speculative.

[kjshsh123]

>Depends on perspective, I would say. When the value rises in a public company, even when it's just the expectation, you have people dumping their wealth (as money) into the company.

That's not how it works at all.

[ryandrake]

But relative wealth is all that matters, when it comes to lifestyle. If I have $100K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the first standard deviation net worth range is $80K to $120K, then I'm living a pretty average lifestyle, can afford my groceries and entertainment, and feel middle class.

If I have a $200K net worth, and I'm living in a city where the range is $1M to $500M, then I'm pretty much living in poverty, even though I have "more wealth" than in scenario 1.

This is also why, although my absolute wealth today is hundreds or thousands of times more than a king in the middle ages, I'm not actually living like a king today.

It's also how gentrification works. You're living somewhere and all of a sudden a bunch of very wealthy people move in, raising the prices of everything. You're no more or less wealthy than before, but everything has become slightly worse.

[AnimalMuppet]

Can everyone be rich enough to not be food insecure or medically insecure? I'd like to think so.

Can everyone be rich enough to not be in the bottom 20%? No, no matter how rich we become.

Can everyone be rich enough to have servants? No, unless you count machines as servants. But if you do, then I'm rich enough to have several.

[kjshsh123]

That is exactly wrong. Real wealth is goods and services available.

You live way better than a king. Your expected lifespan is higher than kings because of access to better food, nutrition, and medical care. You have access to luxuries like chocolate, and coffee that kings might have tasted once in their life, or at best every few weeks.

Not understanding what wealth is, is precisely what leads to this mistaken thinking.

As for gentrification, it is often just confusing correlation and causation. People blame rich people moving in, when really a place just actually became better due to improvements in goods or services like public transit exapansion.

[temp84858696945]

There is not a finite about of wealth, but the wealthy are currently using their position to reduce the amount of wealth the average person has, by driving up prices of everyday requirements so that they can make more money.

It's not an issue that they are wealthy, it's that they are abusing that position to gain even more wealth at the expense of the rest of the population.

[jibal]

That there is more wealth now than in the past does not even remotely imply that there is infinite wealth.

> Making a company and having it valued at whatever value, does not remove that amount of wealth from other people.

This is a strawman. The ability of people to accumulate wealth is affected by every aspect of the economic system, including the means by which those companies are acquiring wealth.