Millennium of wealth

Author: Cynthia Crossen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: The process of wealth creation is the process of world formation. Generations of people's desire for wealth have completely transformed the original society, giving rise to new eras. All activities related to wealth have become key factors in historical progress. Due to the circumstances of different eras and social conditions, people in different times have unique means of creating wealth. A thousand years ago, plundering was the basic means of acquiring vast wealth: from the 12th to the 14th century, plundering became too dangerous, and trade replaced it as the source of wealth: in the 15th and 16th centuries, early capitalists and bankers shared risks and began engaging in the business of making money from money; the 18th and 19th centuries belonged to merchants and entrepreneurs, who recognized the rise of a new consumer society: in the 20th century, the secret to getting rich was to dominate the mass market, and Bill Gates and his computer software were at the forefront of this. The author reflects on the progress of the times through personal stories, carefully selecting ten individuals from different historical periods in the process of human wealth transformation to tell us their extraordinary stories—how these top billionaires accumulated wealth, invested, and spent it over the past thousand years. These ten people, aside from being wealthy, ambitious, and unique, each represent the mechanisms of wealth creation in their respective eras, becoming clues for us to explore the true nature of different historical periods. Throughout the book, readers will gain a clear understanding of the trajectory of wealth transformation. Have you heard of Bill Gates, J.P. Morgan, or the Sultan of Brunei possessing immense wealth, but have you heard of Mansa Musa I—the man who once ruled the richest empire in the world? Mansa Musa I was a king in Africa, and he has been dead for over 650 years, but he shares many similarities with Gates, Morgan, and the Sultan of Brunei, far beyond what you might imagine. All four built incredibly luxurious residences for themselves; all four employed large numbers of subservient servants; all four mastered the art of attracting wealth with wealth. Of course, there were differences: Mansa Musa I executed anyone who sneezed in his presence, while the exceptionally sharp-minded Bill Gates merely cursed incompetent people as the biggest fools. Mansa Musa I rode camels; Morgan had his own private train; the Sultan of Brunei rode Rolls-Royces; Bill Gates preferred Porsche. However, in one important aspect, they were even more alike: throughout history, very few people have achieved wealth on their level. We call them millionaires or billionaires, though these terms were meaningless before currency became widely circulated. Only in the past few centuries has a million units of local currency become the threshold for super wealth, and before the late 20th century, millionaires were as rare as industrial giants. Yet wealth—and its opposite, poverty—has long been a part of the human landscape. Throughout history, some people have always been able to accumulate more surplus wealth through power, imagination, and luck. There is no single secret that can explain their success—each wealthy person's path to riches is unique. Many millionaires at the end of the 20th century were young beneficiaries of the sustained prosperity of the U.S. stock market. Their way of getting rich was to sit in front of rows of computer screens, inputting commands to buy or sell various strange financial instruments issued by companies they had never seen, let alone produced or used. A sociologist ethicist noted in 1999 that money has become more intangible. "In the past, money was property or gold. Now, money is the flickering light on your computer screen. It appears and disappears. It is more like a score and more like a self-contained game, where players compete against each other to create millions, and each new million has little impact on their lifestyle." A thousand years ago, wealth was not expressed in the amount of actual money one possessed. A person's wealth was calculated by the amount of land, slaves, gold bars, and jewelry they owned—wealthy people won respect and obedience by flaunting their riches. Now, wealth is almost always expressed in the form of money, whether it is dollars, pounds, marks, or yen. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out that money can more efficiently satisfy desires and needs. Food can fill hunger, wine can promote health, medicine can cure diseases, and fur can keep one warm in winter. "Only money is an absolute commodity because it is not aimed at a specific need but the need itself." Psychological studies of the wealthy have never truly moved beyond Sigmund Freud's early analysis. Freud speculated that people love money as much as children love their own feces, and people's reactions to money are similar to their reactions to feces—both start with disgust and end with affection. After analyzing myths, fairy tales, superstitions, and dreams, Freud wrote: "People have always kept money in the closest association with filth." Freud studied the childhoods of different subjects who were particularly stingy or shrewd and concluded that "the widest connection seems to exist between various apparently different defecation complexes and an interest in money." Today, wealth is distributed quite widely, and failure is met with unprecedented disdain. "I can't afford it" and "I don't need it" have disappeared from people's common language. Not being able to afford something reflects incompetence (not getting into the stock market at the right time) or a lack of social savvy (why not borrow money?). As for needs, in an era when the average American family owns three televisions, how is it defined? This book tells the stories of wealth of nine men and one woman, and it is almost certain that they are not the ten wealthiest people in this millennium. Comparing today's wealth with wealth before money became the basic medium for commercial relations is impossible. Over the past few centuries, money has almost become global, but prices marked by money belong to their respective eras and cannot be compared across multiple centuries. The ten individuals portrayed in this book—aside from being wealthy, ambitious, and unique—represent the mechanisms of wealth creation in their respective eras. Overall, the greatest difference between today's wealthy and those a thousand years ago is that physical strength is no longer a necessary condition for acquiring wealth; it has become irrelevant. In the third millennium, people will fight with bits and bytes, using their fingers. Bill Gates controls the computer market from his company headquarters near Seattle, and his net worth is largely calculated based on the value of his Microsoft stock when it was converted to cash. He created what may be the largest fortune in world history by merely taking a share of the massive development of computer technology at the end of the 19th century. Regarding how to handle wealth, humans have always faced a choice: they can produce more or demand less. From the perspective of today's U.S. advantage, life in the past was very hard, lacking luxuries, and long accompanied by blood, sweat, and tears. It is generally believed that everyone wants more, and greed is human nature, while thrift is out of necessity. However, anthropologists Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood told the story of the Nuer people, who in the 1930s refused to do business with Arabs because their only commodity was cattle, and the only thing they wanted from trade was more cattle. Ultimately, the best answer to the question "Who is wealthy?" may be "Those who believe they are wealthy."