Modern lifestyles often blur the lines between needs and wants, often convincing us that we need things that we actually just want and could very well do without. But this is not a completely new thing: James Maitland, the eighth Earl of Lauderdale, argued in his paradox -- that later came to be associated with his name -- that there was an inverse correlation between public wealth and private riches in a way that increasing private riches often meant diminishing public wealth. And therein lies the difference: public wealth, according to Maitland, is what people need. He goes a step further from bare necessities and states that public wealth “consist[s] of all that man desires, as useful or delightful to him.” The difference between that and private riches, then, is that they require something additional, making them “all that man desires as useful or delightful to him; which exists in a degree of scarcity.”
That way, “riches” simply represent something that you have, that not everyone else can get. While this makes sense for things like gold and art, the problem is in the need to have what others do not only want, but need, which leads to the privatization of public wealth and services. This can range from privatized healthcare to privatized potable water (Nestle is a particularly egregious example), and while it increases the measured riches of a nation or corporation or even individual, the general population suffers. In this way, the constant capitalist race of acquiring more while seeing other humans only as competition, devoid of empathy, leads to happy graphs and full pockets of the chosen few, but a widening chasm between owning excess and struggling to survive.
