Basically, wealth is the total value of assets. It is not GDP, which he calls revenue. But the critical quantity in this analysis is that part of the wealth which is allocated as productive capital (maybe that's why we should pay attention not to stock market capitalization) and, more importantly for the purposes of living standards, that part of capital which is "destined for the maintenance of labour".
It is the ratio of that quantity to the productivity of labour that gives a measure of the wages of labour.
Smith assumes constant, incremental productivity growth, implying wages will fall unless the "funds destined for the maintenance of labour" increase apace with the productivity. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
I mean we should pay attention to market capitalization, not to price indices (though they are correlated). guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Basically, wealth is the total value of assets.
No. Wealth is the value of assets minus liabilities. (Or is that what you meant by "total assets"?) GDP is not wealth. It is, roughly, the aggregate annual income of the nation being dicussed. ("Roughly" because that doesn't take into account earnings from goods and services produced overseas.) The US figure for GDP is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $13-14 trillion, I believe, but total wealth in the US is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $60 trillion. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
