Wealth, wants, needs, … and stewardship.

I have recently been reading a bit of Aristotle and find some of his conclusions interesting – though dead wrong.  I really enjoy reading people with whom I disagree.  I have the highest occurrences of epiphanies when I do.  For instance, in Politics, Book I, he talks about the art of money-making.  I don’t rember what exactly it was that he said that got my mind pondering it, but it got me thinking about what material wealth is.  It must have been a combination of reading Aristotle and something I heard on a FEE podcast recently – something about nobody saves just for the sake of saving money.  They are always saving for something they want – either a new toy, an unexpected expense or emergency, or something else.  It’s never just for the sake of saving.  I’m not sure on the complete accuracy of that claim, but it did get me thinking about savings, and wealth generation.

I think the most accurate definition of wealth that I came up with is that wealth is the state in which one has the resources to supply all of their own needs and just wants, and enough to provide for the wants and needs of others.  People have two choices to supply their needs and just wants.  They can provide it for themselves, or they can exchange with someone else for it.  This is the basic roots of any society – a co-dependency on the productive capacity of other people.  The problem then arises when either someone else has some good or service that you want, but they don’t really care to have the good or service that you offer; or vice-versa – someone else wants a good or service that you offer, and you don’t really want or need what they have to offer.  This is the beginnings of the concept of money.  Instead of making an exchange for things which we didn’t need or want, we exchanged for a generally accepted form of currency.  It was something that was generally accepted as payment for goods and services.  It increased exchange, but also created the difficulties of erroneous ideas about the nature of money.

Before I go further, when I say “just wants” I mean those things which are not necessary for subsistence, but which are reasonable to want – meaning that the want does not tend toward excess, or idleness, causes no harm to anyone else, and does not hinder one’s ability to be productive.  Wanting something that fits this definition is what I call a just want.  This is how I understand the scripture D&C 82:17

And you are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties, for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just.

In order to avoid tedium, I’ll use the term wants when I mean just wants as explained above.

Many people would then decide not to exchange, but the astute individual will not only be looking for goods and services which will supply their own needs and just wants, but the needs and just wants of others.  Even if they don’t need or justly want what is offered in exchange for their services, if what is offered is something that other people need or justly want, they could be of service to other people who may not have the relationship with the provider of those goods and services.

Exchange is a very interesting thing.  You can learn a lot about an individual by observing the exchanges in which they participate.  The exchanges do not have to involve money in order to tell you about the person, in fact money has the effect of obscuring the value being exchanged because it is often mistaken for actual value, instead of the place holder of value created in the past.

Going back to the topic of exchanging for something that you yourself may not need or want, because you feel it is something others may need or want.  When we do this, there is wealth created.  We now have more than enough to provide for our own wants and needs, but we also have enough to provide for the wants and needs of others.

Some people take this to a coclusion that if you have more than your needs, that you have some duty to give it away for nothing to those who are not in as beneficial circumstances.  I disagree.  Getting something for nothing is not only damaging, but if taken literally, it is actually impossible.  You always give up something when you gain something else.  If an individual receives something without giving something in return, they’re character is damaged.  Their self-confidence that they can provide for themselves is damaged.  The stewardship over the exchange is both that of the giver and the receiver.  To be good stewards over our charitable giving, we must do our best to ensure that the other party is not being damaged by receiving something for nothing.