Economists have a bizarrely unrealistic little character called homo economicus. He has all the necessary information, carefully weighs every possible choice, and then makes the decision that will maximize his benefit. He is rational. He is calculating. He knows what he wants and how to get it.
He also is nothing like the average human being.
Of course, homo economicus is a model. A simplified version of human behavior intended to explain how people make economic decisions. But the problem with models is that they become assumptions. Then principles. Then “absolute truth.”
And I think the “absolute truth” that the capitalist system (and I don’t mean to necessarily demonize capitalism) has socialized us and “educated” us to believe is that; material gain is what defines wealth.
Wealth is defined by money. More money equals more wealth. More wealth is always better. Therefore, more money is always better.
And we’ve created an entire culture around this misguided formula. We rank people according to their income, their homes, their cars, their investments, and the number of things they can afford to have delivered without ever speaking to another human being.
I’m not saying that money doesn’t matter. Of course it does. Try paying your electric bill with friendship and see how far that gets you. But the idea that money is all that matters is just plain not true.
I contend that relationships are what define true wealth.
If we were to subtract money from the human equation, it would be our relationships that determine whether we survive or not. Who would help us get food? Who would give us shelter? Who would care for us when we were sick? Who would help keep us safe? Who would teach us what we needed to know? Who would come looking for us if we disappeared?
For most of human history, survival depended on the answers to those very questions. A person separated from the group was in serious trouble. Human beings survived because we cared for one another, shared knowledge, watched each other’s children, gathered food together, and protected the group from danger.
Quite clearly, our earliest form of wealth was other people. And that hasn’t changed nearly as much as we might imagine. We’ve simply placed money between ourselves and many of the relationships that once sustained us. We pay for childcare. We pay for eldercare. We pay for transportation, meals, home repairs, advice, entertainment, companionship, and security. There’s now an app available to perform almost any task a neighbor, friend, or family member once might have done.
And this makes us poorer.
Relational wealth declines and we spend money trying to replace it. The economy grows. The numbers look wonderful. But all we’re really doing is liquidating community and recording the sale as prosperity.
And this makes us poorer.
Even in the business world, which is dominated by the accumulation of material wealth, it’s relationships that build the material wealth itself. It’s through networking in the “good old boy system” that businesses become successful.
After all; it’s not what you do, it’s who you know. Right?
People get jobs because someone knows them. Contracts get awarded because someone trusts them. Investors write checks because someone made an introduction. Customers return because they have a relationship with the business. Suppliers extend credit because of trust developed over time. Behind nearly every successful business is a web of relationships that made the financial success possible.
And this “good old boy system” proves my point rather effectively. Its power comes from relational wealth accumulated over generations. Families know families. People attend the same schools and churches, belong to the same clubs, serve on the same boards, and make opportunities available to people already inside the network.
The system calls the result merit. And sometimes it is merit. But sometimes it’s just uncle Bob. Either way, the relationships have material value. They open doors, lower risk, transfer knowledge, and provide access to opportunities that may never be advertised.
Two equally capable people can live in entirely different economic worlds because one knows the right person and the other doesn’t. The fact of the matter is that wealth is inherited through relationships long before money changes hands.
I see the other side of this in my work at the Community Stability Hub (f.k.a. the community resource center). People often come to us because their relational network has been exhausted, fractured, or never existed in the first place. They may need rent assistance, food, transportation, employment, healthcare, or a place to stay. The presenting problem may be money but beneath it, very often, is the absence of someone who can help. No family member with a spare room. No friend with a reliable car. No former employer willing to make a call. No neighbor who knows where to go. No one in their network with enough stability to absorb one more crisis.
This is why two households with the same income can experience poverty very differently. One has grandparents who provide childcare, a cousin who repairs cars, a church that helps with groceries, and friends who can provide transportation. The other household has none of those things. On paper, they have the same amount of money. In real life though, they don’t have the same amount of wealth.
Relational wealth, real wealth, is found in trust, reciprocity, reputation, shared history, and the knowledge that someone will answer the phone. It can’t always be converted into dollars, although businesses manage to do so every day. And its real value is that it gives people access to things money would otherwise have to purchase – and sometimes things money cannot purchase: Belonging. Meaning. Recognition. The feeling that your existence matters to someone beyond its economic usefulness.
A society built around homo economicus has trouble accounting for any of this. Human beings become consumers, workers, taxpayers, borrowers, tenants, customers, and units of productivity. We are measured by what we produce, what we spend, and what we own. Relationships become economically visible only when they produce a transaction.
There’s no doubt that capitalism can be an extraordinarily effective tool for creating and distributing material goods. But, as with homo economicus, the trouble begins when an economic tool becomes a definition of human value. Of human life. Of the human experience. We start believing that people flourish through accumulation because accumulation is what the system knows how to measure. And if we can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter. Right?
So we accumulate.
More money. More property. More possessions. More credentials. More followers. More contacts.
And still, people are lonely. Disconnected. Still searching for community while living among millions of other people doing exactly the same thing.
“You see, we’ve entirely misunderstood wealth. We’ve confused what can be counted with what counts.”
And I propose to you, dear reader, that a wealthy person has people they can depend upon. Furthermore, a wealthy community has people who depend upon one another.
Money can certainly help. It can buy food, shelter, medicine, comfort, and time. It can reduce suffering and create opportunity. But money gains much of its power from the relationships surrounding it. Without trust, cooperation, shared rules, and a functioning society, money is paper. Or numbers on a screen. Useful numbers. But numbers all the same.
If money vanished tomorrow, our relationships would determine whether we survived.
If our relationships vanished tomorrow… money would be far from enough.
