When making money doesn’t generate wealth | Letters

Alan Wenban-Smith on the intersection between wealth creation and making money and Jennifer Highwood on politicians buying seats

Two excellent articles this week - by Nesrine Malik (Hidden behind the celebration of Labour's landslide' win is a depressing disfranchisement, 15 July) and by George Monbiot (Labour can end austerity at a stroke - by taxing the rich and taxing them hard, 14 July). But while they tease out the dire societal consequences of the economic assumption that making money and creating wealth are mutually supportive, they don't nail this as the original crime. This is ironic since both articles demonstrate the effect of normalising such an assumption: its use in rightwing media to further vested interests, and being baked into public and political discourse.

Wealth creation is a broad concept: delivery of the things we need, want or enjoy. It includes things such as a healthy environment and secure social fabric, as well as goods and services. Making money is about establishing a personal claim on marketed wealth, whether produced by ourselves or others. Draw a Venn diagram of the activities in these two categories and it becomes clear that, while there is an overlap, it is very far from being an identity. A current example is provided by the water industry: lots of money is being made, but wealth less so.
Alan Wenban-Smith
Birmingham