Millennium of Wealth: A History of Human Wealth Changes

Author: (USA) Croson
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Have you heard of Bill Gates, J.P. Morgan, and the Sultan of Brunei possessing immense wealth, but have you heard of Mansa Musa I—the man who once ruled the world with his riches? Mansa Musa I was a king from Africa, and he has been gone for over 650 years, yet he shares many similarities with Gates, Morgan, and the Sultan of Brunei, far beyond what you might imagine. All four of them built incredibly luxurious residences; they all employed large numbers of subservient servants; they all understood the art of attracting wealth with wealth. Of course, there are differences: Mansa Musa I executed anyone who sneezed in his presence, while the exceptionally sharp-minded Bill Gates merely cursed incompetent people as big idiots. Mansa Musa I rode camels; Morgan had his own private train; the Sultan of Brunei traveled in Rolls-Royces; Bill Gates preferred Porsche. However, in one important aspect, they are even more alike: throughout history, there have been very few people who have achieved their level of wealth. We call them millionaires or billionaires, though these terms were meaningless before money became widely circulated. Only in the past few centuries has a million-based local currency become the threshold for super wealth, and before the late 20th century, millionaires were as rare as industrial tycoons. Yet wealth—and its opposite, poverty—has long been a part of the human landscape. Throughout history, there have always been people who could 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 to wealth was to sit in front of rows of computer screens, inputting commands to buy or sell various 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 to create millions, and each new million has little impact on their lifestyle." A thousand years ago, wealth was not measured by how much actual money one had. 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. Today, wealth is almost always expressed in the form of money, whether it’s 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 improve health, medicine can cure diseases, and fur can keep one warm in winter. "Only money is an absolute commodity because it addresses not just a specific need but the need itself." Psychological studies of the wealthy have never truly moved beyond Sigmund Freud’s early analyses. Freud speculated that people love money as much as children love their own feces, and that people’s reactions to money are similar to their reactions to feces—from disgust to affection, just as with children. After analyzing myths, fairy tales, superstitions, and dreams, Freud wrote: "People have always kept money in close association with filth." Freud studied the childhoods of different subjects who were particularly stingy or shrewd and concluded that there was a "close connection, as if there were various different types of defecation complexes and an interest in money." Today, wealth is widely distributed, and failure to succeed is met with unprecedented contempt. "I can’t afford it" and "I don’t need it" have disappeared from common speech. Being unable 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 nine men and one woman who have accumulated wealth, 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 centuries. The ten people depicted here—beyond being wealthy, ambitious, and unique—represent the mechanisms by which wealth was created in their respective times. Overall, the biggest 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 as weapons. Bill Gates controls the computer market from his tree-filled corporate headquarters near Seattle, and his net worth is largely calculated based on the value of his Microsoft stock when it was converted to money. He created what may be the largest fortune in world history by merely taking a slice of the massive development of computer technology in the late 19th century. When it comes to how to handle wealth, humans have always faced this choice: they can produce more or demand less. From today’s perspective in the United States, 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."