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As your wikipedia link states: >...While online articles in the 21st century have claimed that Mansa Musa was the richest person of all time,[91] historians su

by opo 1y ago

As your wikipedia link states: >...While online articles in the 21st century have claimed that Mansa Musa was the richest person of all time,[91] historians such as Hadrien Collet have argued that Musa's wealth is impossible to calculate accurately. We don't know the exact wealth of Manda Musa and there really isn't a good way to compare wealth between different eras. Even in the same general timeframe, wouldn't the khanates of the mongol empire be considered more wealthy?

teleforce 1y ago
Nobody really know for sure to be honest but he's most probably one of the top ten. The linked BBC article in the HN post has the list for top 10 richest man in history with Mansa Musa at the very top but Shah Jahan the Mughal Emperor who's the owner of Taj Mahal is not even in the list [1]. The 10 richest men of all time: 1) Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth indescribable 2) Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn (£3.5tn) 3) Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China) wealth incalculable 4) Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India's Mughal dynasty) wealth incalculable 5) Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American industrialist) $372bn 6) John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate) $341bn 7) Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia) $300bn 8) Mir Osman Ali Khan (1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn 9) William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn 10) Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya) $200bn [1] Is Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458
- jl6 1y ago
  Mansa Musa’s headline story is that his spending caused inflation in Egypt. I understand that estimate of Augustus Caesar’s wealth is based in part on him considering Egypt, in its entirety, to be his personal possession. It feels like “owning the whole country” should probably outrank “causing inflation in that country”, it’s probably meaningless to try to compare across such vast gulfs of time and place.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - notahacker 1y ago
    Musa had an empire too, one that possessed so much gold that his holiday tips devalued the principal store of wealth in foreign countries. Agree the comparisons aren't particularly meaningful; a lot depends on whether your consider having lots of gold to show off with to be more valuable than building an industrial empire, or even owning a bunch of now-common consumer goods and having access to healthcare more impressive than anything Augustus or Musa bought
    - wqaatwt 1y ago
      Problem is that gold is only worth as much as you can buy with it. If there aren’t enough goods it’s actual price will drop by many times
- LunaSea 1y ago
  Aren't Bezos, Musk, Gates & co richer the first half of the people on the list?
  - flohofwoe 1y ago
    Not until one of them buys the entire US armed forces, installs himself on the throne in Washington and declares all of California his own personal property - just to draw a parallel to the number 2 spot ;)
    - euroderf 1y ago
      Soon.
      - DonHopkins 1y ago
        [dead]
        pelagicAustral 1y ago
        Only for 50% of the population
    - rayiner 1y ago
      The fact that none of them could come close to doing that aptly illustrates why they’re not nearly as wealthy as those in the past.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  fwiw Mughal≠Mongol
- bernds74 1y ago
  Some guy once famously noted that wealth is not measured in gold or silver, but in goods and services. Mansa Musa didn't have a Ferrari F40, or an RTX4090, or air conditioning. He couldn't buy a trip to low earth orbit or get cancer treatment if he needed it. Many people in this day and age are vastly more wealthy than he was.
  - Winsaucerer 1y ago
    That's definitely a reasonable way to think about it. Another though is in terms of social status and ability to direct human labor, in which case most people are not more wealthy.
    - Retric 1y ago
      On that scale Xi Jinping is likely the richest person to ever live. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping You rarely see modern dictators on these lists but populations and economic prosperity have exploded to the point where historic kings can’t really compete.
      - Winsaucerer 1y ago
        I actually do think of him as a candidate for wealthiest person to have ever lived.
      - tonyhart7 1y ago
        yeah but he is "only" leader, he don't own entire china economy
        Retric 1y ago
        “social status and ability to direct human labor” doesn’t require ownership just control. In the US congress controls in the funding, but in a dictatorship the guy at the top can unilaterally allocate billions and then manage how it’s spent. It’s not total control of all government assets but it is control of a significant fraction of a modern economy. Just as a thought experiment, suppose he wanted to fund Doctors Without Borders or some other international charity. Do you really think he’d have trouble sending the equivalent of 1 billion USD in Chinese government funds to that org? How about 2 billion? Obviously at some point it wouldn’t work but where exactly that line is says a lot about the power he has.
- aquova 1y ago
  Is there a reason this list wouldn't include any of their successors, who inherited the vast majority, if not all, of their holdings? Did Tiberius not inherit enough of Augustus's wealth to make this top 10 as well?
  - anton-c 1y ago
    Iirc he gave some to his wife(?) Anyone who had multiple people in their will diluted it. Though I feel Augustus got all of Julius' will which goes against this, I imagine powerful people might have a few people they want to leave something for when they die.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  > wealth indescribable That’s kind of the problem.. even if we knew the amount of gold he actually had and multiplied it by its current market price the resulting figure would be entirely pointless. The question is how much stuff he could buy for it back in the 1300s. If there wasn’t enough stuff/people to buy having a massive hoard of illiquid gold doesn’t necessarily make you extremely wealthy. Including absolute monarchs and dictators in the list is also semi meaningless. Also the the way you chose to measure this wealth results in massive variance. E.g. Jacob Fugger was allegedly worth $400 billion if adjusted by inflation but he’s not even here.
yieldcrv 1y ago
Mansa Musa was illiquid and could not exchange much wealth for goods and services and had nothing to invest in during a time where the gini coefficient around him would have been 1.0 It is marvelous he found gold and even then he could only give it away freely

by opo 1y ago

teleforce 1y ago

Nobody really know for sure to be honest but he's most probably one of the top ten. The linked BBC article in the HN post has the list for top 10 richest man in history with Mansa Musa at the very top but Shah Jahan the Mughal Emperor who's the owner of Taj Mahal is not even in the list [1]. The 10 richest men of all time: 1) Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth indescribable 2) Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn (£3.5tn) 3) Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China) wealth incalculable 4) Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India's Mughal dynasty) wealth incalculable 5) Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American industrialist) $372bn 6) John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate) $341bn 7) Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia) $300bn 8) Mir Osman Ali Khan (1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn 9) William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn 10) Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya) $200bn [1] Is Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458

jl6 1y ago
Mansa Musa’s headline story is that his spending caused inflation in Egypt. I understand that estimate of Augustus Caesar’s wealth is based in part on him considering Egypt, in its entirety, to be his personal possession. It feels like “owning the whole country” should probably outrank “causing inflation in that country”, it’s probably meaningless to try to compare across such vast gulfs of time and place.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- notahacker 1y ago
  Musa had an empire too, one that possessed so much gold that his holiday tips devalued the principal store of wealth in foreign countries. Agree the comparisons aren't particularly meaningful; a lot depends on whether your consider having lots of gold to show off with to be more valuable than building an industrial empire, or even owning a bunch of now-common consumer goods and having access to healthcare more impressive than anything Augustus or Musa bought
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    Problem is that gold is only worth as much as you can buy with it. If there aren’t enough goods it’s actual price will drop by many times
LunaSea 1y ago
Aren't Bezos, Musk, Gates & co richer the first half of the people on the list?
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  Not until one of them buys the entire US armed forces, installs himself on the throne in Washington and declares all of California his own personal property - just to draw a parallel to the number 2 spot ;)
  - euroderf 1y ago
    Soon.
    - DonHopkins 1y ago
      [dead]
      - pelagicAustral 1y ago
        Only for 50% of the population
  - rayiner 1y ago
    The fact that none of them could come close to doing that aptly illustrates why they’re not nearly as wealthy as those in the past.
saagarjha 1y ago
fwiw Mughal≠Mongol
bernds74 1y ago
Some guy once famously noted that wealth is not measured in gold or silver, but in goods and services. Mansa Musa didn't have a Ferrari F40, or an RTX4090, or air conditioning. He couldn't buy a trip to low earth orbit or get cancer treatment if he needed it. Many people in this day and age are vastly more wealthy than he was.
- Winsaucerer 1y ago
  That's definitely a reasonable way to think about it. Another though is in terms of social status and ability to direct human labor, in which case most people are not more wealthy.
  - Retric 1y ago
    On that scale Xi Jinping is likely the richest person to ever live. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping You rarely see modern dictators on these lists but populations and economic prosperity have exploded to the point where historic kings can’t really compete.
    - Winsaucerer 1y ago
      I actually do think of him as a candidate for wealthiest person to have ever lived.
    - tonyhart7 1y ago
      yeah but he is "only" leader, he don't own entire china economy
      - Retric 1y ago
        “social status and ability to direct human labor” doesn’t require ownership just control. In the US congress controls in the funding, but in a dictatorship the guy at the top can unilaterally allocate billions and then manage how it’s spent. It’s not total control of all government assets but it is control of a significant fraction of a modern economy. Just as a thought experiment, suppose he wanted to fund Doctors Without Borders or some other international charity. Do you really think he’d have trouble sending the equivalent of 1 billion USD in Chinese government funds to that org? How about 2 billion? Obviously at some point it wouldn’t work but where exactly that line is says a lot about the power he has.
aquova 1y ago
Is there a reason this list wouldn't include any of their successors, who inherited the vast majority, if not all, of their holdings? Did Tiberius not inherit enough of Augustus's wealth to make this top 10 as well?
- anton-c 1y ago
  Iirc he gave some to his wife(?) Anyone who had multiple people in their will diluted it. Though I feel Augustus got all of Julius' will which goes against this, I imagine powerful people might have a few people they want to leave something for when they die.
wqaatwt 1y ago
> wealth indescribable That’s kind of the problem.. even if we knew the amount of gold he actually had and multiplied it by its current market price the resulting figure would be entirely pointless. The question is how much stuff he could buy for it back in the 1300s. If there wasn’t enough stuff/people to buy having a massive hoard of illiquid gold doesn’t necessarily make you extremely wealthy. Including absolute monarchs and dictators in the list is also semi meaningless. Also the the way you chose to measure this wealth results in massive variance. E.g. Jacob Fugger was allegedly worth $400 billion if adjusted by inflation but he’s not even here.

yieldcrv 1y ago

Mansa Musa was illiquid and could not exchange much wealth for goods and services and had nothing to invest in during a time where the gini coefficient around him would have been 1.0 It is marvelous he found gold and even then he could only give it away freely