What Do You Think Money Is?

They say that Elon Musk has enough and couldn't care for more.

But what's wealth, what's money?

Wealth, or the measure of it, is how much money you can turn your stuff into.

Money is the form of wealth that you need when you are ready to spend, or as economists say, ready to demand.

Economists talk about the total of all spending on what we produce being “aggregate” demand. It amounts to control over all the goods and services we put up for sale.

Controlling all of aggregate demand wouldn't give you control of everything, since far from everything is put up for sale. But if someone could wield a big fraction of aggregate demand year after year, wouldn't they want to? To have that kind of spending power, being able then substantially to reshape parts of society, is possible in our world today—does anyone want it?

The history of maniacs striving for power answers the question immediately. Of course they would.

Money is power. Other things are power too, but the power in other things doesn't eradicate the power in money.

Someone else's money doesn't mean they have power over you directly. You don't have to be moved directly by their money. But if some other people will be moved by their money, then they do wield power that indirectly affects you. Now, that's normal. That's part of life. We all affect each other indirectly. But if someone has poor judgment and also has the power to affect us indirectly in major ways, that's a problem.

What does Elon Musk want from us—on what is he wanting to spend a huge chunk of his and our money? By all accounts, he wants above all for humanity to terraform Mars, a profoundly distant goal toward which anyone's resources could be redirected, today, this year, and every year for many, many years. He wants us to go all out starting now, squandering our energies on a fantasy that our children and grandchildren will view very negatively, and surely abandon, since by its pursuit we would have neglected what's good for them.

So, yes. It sounds insane, because it is insane, but unless you're a very experienced rocket scientist still actively at work, the little twerp actually is after your Social Security—as much of it as he can get, as much of it as he can put at the disposal of his monomaniacal dork squads, in order to support an imaginary someone, on another planet, in another life.

No, money can't change everything. Rearranging aggregate demand will never relocate America. But it really could make many of us throw away a lot of our time on Earth.

Featured image is an 'astronaut' standing on 'Mars.'