Wealth from the old English word "weal", which means "well-being" or "welfare". The term was originally an adjective to describe the possession of such qualities.
"Wealth" has come to mean an abundance of items of economic value, or the state of controlling or possessing such items, and encompasses money, real estate and personal property. In many countries wealth is also measured by reference to access to essential services such as health care, or the possession of crops and livestock. An individual who is wealthy, affluent, or rich is someone who has accumulated substantial wealth relative to others in their society or reference group.
Wealth relates more to the flow of resources whilst richness relates more to the static absolute value. A wealthy individual, company or community, thus has more resources than it needs and spends, it enjoys a positive flow of resources, including art, beauty, spiritual well being. A rich person, company or community can or cannot be wealthy, the adjective identifying a quantity of richness, a static point, not a dynamic flow. Thus we can have rich individuals who are not wealthy and rich nations that are not wealthy.
The opposite of wealth is scarcity, the opposite of richness is poverty.
The term implies a social contract on establishing and maintaining ownership in relation to such items which can be invoked with little or no effort and expense on the part of the owner (see means of protection).
The concept of wealth is relative and not only varies between societies, but will often vary between different sections or regions in the same society. For example, a personal net worth of US $1,000,000 in most parts of the United States Midwest would certainly place a person among the wealthiest citizens, yet the same net wealth would be considered quite modest on New York City's Upper East Side or in the Connecticut suburbs. However, such amounts would constitute extraordinary wealth in impoverished developing countries. Some of the wealthiest countries in the world are; the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (especially Dubai), Germany, The Netherlands, France, Australia, Canada, and Switzerland, many of which are in the G8.-wikipedia
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