The Rich Can Afford to Work on Non-Wealth-Building Projects, But in a Precarious World, That isn't a Smart Move

When one asks for the wealthiest countries in the world, perhaps the most commonly used (albeit deceptive) measurement is GDP per capita. The logic is that if each resident, on average, is more economically productive, they would justify higher wages and thus more spending power to improve their livelihoods. A corollary is that the wealthy ought to also be the most peaceful. After all, crime and conflict are not good for business. No one would both investing, scaling up, and paying people to produce if they worry about their assets and very lives.

Yet, the past decades have reminded us that wealth have not necessarily translated to peace for some countries. As another anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks passes, one is reminded that the US (#7 in GDP per capita rankings) was assaulted by an organization led by a citizen of Saudi Arabia (#39). And this year, the anniversary was drowned by the renewed prospect of wealthy-on-wealthy terror as Israel (#16) bombs Qatar (#9). And conflict has not limited to the armed kind. Trump-launched trade war has pretty much engulfed all of the European, Asian, and North American countries at the top of the rankings.

It begs the question why the wealthiest countries sabotage their own privileged economic positions through these self-imposed hostilities. Sure, some can be explained away by national interest. Wealth today means little if enemies are constantly trying to destroy you, as Israel always insists. Total or average wealth means little if so many people are left behind, being economically strangled by a system that is stacked against them, as Trump would tell his supporters. Wealth is not a monolith, and the wealthy will do whatever they can to secure more of it.

But instigating conflicts is itself an expensive affair that only the wealthy can afford. Wars cost billions upon billions in armaments that cannot be reused or recycled once lost on the battlefields. Trade wars come with the signifcant caveat of tit-for-tat tariffs that countries without diversified economic bases cannot hope to sustain. While wealth does indeed begets wealth, it is worth noting that perhaps the wealthiest are already so wealthy that they are willing to look for ideals beyond wealth that they are willing to scrifice wealth for?

That observation, if not obvious at the country level, is quite apparent at the personal one. Elon Musk, as the world's richest man, often behaves in ways that suggest he does not care that much about keeping the title. Toxic tweets about toxic political battles hurt sales of his cars and devalued his social media platform, but as not sapped his optimism, so much so that he continues to procreate with the assumption that he can sustain more and more children. His antics are only replicated at lesser scales by less well-known but still wealthy individuals burning cash on quixotic goals like traveling to the moon.

Even though I am far from joining the ranks of these blissfully wealthy, I am getting to the age when many people around me seem to be on the cusp of pivoting from building wealth and hoarding it to willing to put their personal values into action even if it means wealth gets sacrificed in the process. It has been not so unusual to hear of people quitting high-paying jobs in finance to become artists with little revenue potential. Others quit jobs so that can buy seaside Mediterranean houses even though they are more than spritely enough to work a few more decades. 

Jealous, perhaps. But puzzling is a bigger reaction. The world is becoming more precarious for wage-earners, not the least because of the wealthy countries lobbing bombs and tariffs on one another. With the wealthy folks dependent on normal folks spending their limited income to sustain businesses, today's wealth might not be sustainable in a more world where future income is more insecure. History remembers the wealthy countries of the past that have fallen on hard times, from Argentina (#66) suffering inflation to Nauru (#77) running out of natural resources. Being rich shouldn't breed complacency.

Better to learn from Norway (#6), who have so meticulously prepared for the day oil runs out, with a massive sovereign wealth fund that is grabbing a piece of any asset that may hold value for its citizens in the centuries to come. Or the UAE (#21), busily using oil wealth to build everything from financial services to tourism, that can power the economy when renewable energy makes natural gas obsolete. Being wealthy may mean one has the resources to turn the world upside down. But one may find that in the upside down world, one's wealth may not last. It is wiser not to stop wealth-building but to de-risk it.