This echoes a lot of the same sentiments that Paul Graham puts forth in his essay "How to Make Wealth"[1]. Basically, the claim is "money is not wealth" (or as

This echoes a lot of the same sentiments that Paul Graham puts forth in his essay "How to Make Wealth"[1]. Basically, the claim is "money is not wealth" (or as put above, money is not value). Money is a tool, used for three things: 1. making it easy to trade if you can't barter (i.e., be a medium of exchange) 2. store wealth (i.e., store value) 3. measure wealth (i.e., be a unit of account) Wealth on the other hand deals with actually making the economy better off. Creating a startup that makes widgets faster and cheaper then ships them out over the interwebs moves the needle forward. Both of these scenarios create wealth. I think there's still an argument to be made over the apparent inequality between how much work is required to create a certain amount of wealth. And certainly, owning wealth while doing no work is another story entirely. [1] http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html