Wealth & Money Quote by David Korten

Korten’s line is a quiet demolition of a cultural reflex: treating numbers as nourishment. By separating “money” from “wealth,” he’s not doing semantics; he’s reassigning moral and political responsibility. Wealth, in his framing, is the real stuff of a functioning society: fertile soil, clean water, durable infrastructure, competent care work, healthy communities, knowledge. Money is just a voucher system layered on top, a social IOU that only works if the underlying reality can actually deliver.

The phrase “a claim on wealth” is doing the sharpest work. A claim can be bought, hoarded, traded, inherited, enforced. It can also multiply without anything real multiplying underneath it. That’s the critique hidden in the calm tone: modern economies have become expert at expanding claims (financial assets, debt, speculative instruments) while degrading the base they’re supposedly claiming against. If wealth is a living system, money is a legal abstraction; it can’t photosynthesize, replenish aquifers, or raise children.

Contextually, this is activist economics aimed at puncturing GDP worship and the “markets equal truth” vibe that dominates policy talk. It reframes inequality not just as uneven income but as unequal access to the right to command society’s resources. It also hints at a boundary: when claims outrun reality, the bill arrives as crisis - inflation, austerity, ecological collapse. Korten’s intent is to make the invisible visible: money’s power is derivative, contingent, and therefore contestable.