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@mk Well its complicated. The question is how deep do we need to go in order to understand the original question.

So in its simple terms people think of it as the total sell value of everything you have. But in reality thats not the case for several reasons.

1) The money you can get for an object can be drastically different depending on how quickly you want to sell

2) As you sell goods you effect the market balance and as such effect the money value of the very thing you are trying to measure.

3) even if you do find a way to define the money value of an object it really only has relevance for a particular moment in time and place.. Any other currency, or time and youll get very different numbers. In other words, the value is fixed to utility, as is the market.

For example to #1, if I have an antique gold ring I get very different amount of money if i sell instantly (pawn shop or melt value) vs if im willing to auction it. If I am willing to wait months for the right buyer, in the case of a specialty item, it may take some time. This can more than double the sell price of an item.

So if we cant use the simple definition then how do we define wealth... Well the best way to think of it is the worth of everything you have in a much more abstract case.

As I said earlier its best to think of this in terms of a world of one or two people.. If I am the only person in the world and I own 2 cows that feeds me, I have wealth (the worth of 2 cows in terms of their utility)... If I breed those 2 cows and have 4 cows, I now have twice the wealth I did before, even if I am the only person on the planet and money never existed.

Now if all of a sudden some other person existed on the planet with me and offered me 100$ a cow, if i have 2 cows still and he offers me double at 200$ a cow, even though the money value is twice, it doesnt imply I have created any wealth, since i have all the same "stuff" I had before, and presumably the worth of the cows hasnt changed (if it did I might have more wealth).

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