> what is the eventual physical utility of all this stored wealth? As an analogy, if money is like potential energy when kept in the form of financial instruments and real estate, what is its first eventual “kinetic” form after belonging to a billionaire?
Money is just a proxy for power (as are things like title to real estate, equity ownership in a business, board seats, etc).
The utility is just that, the power to do something. Obviously, greatly depends on the one wielding it, but also on the environment (status of civilization, courts, relationships, orderly societies, wars, availability of resources).
Note that all of these abstractions for power mean nothing if other people do not respect them. I take that to mean “wealth”, in a way, is a measure of how orderly a society (or world) is, regardless of how unfairly distributed it is.
Money is just a proxy for power (as are things like title to real estate, equity ownership in a business, board seats, etc).
The utility is just that, the power to do something. Obviously, greatly depends on the one wielding it, but also on the environment (status of civilization, courts, relationships, orderly societies, wars, availability of resources).
Note that all of these abstractions for power mean nothing if other people do not respect them. I take that to mean “wealth”, in a way, is a measure of how orderly a society (or world) is, regardless of how unfairly distributed it is.