Money, Status, Wealth. Which Game Are you Going to Play?
Money, Status, Wealth. Which Game Are you Going to Play?
We'd like to make the case that wealth game is the most attractive
In our view, human civilisation has 3 major games that participants play. Those are:
Money game
Status game
Wealth game
Depending on who you are (background and education) you might focus and optimise on playing one of these three games. This article makes the case that one should prioritise playing the wealth game.
Before we jump into the why, let us briefly describe the respective games available and their key characteristics.
Wealth Game
We define wealth as an asset that keeps doing productive things on their own without much of our active intervention.
Computer program that runs at night to provide automated services to your clients is wealth
The shares of a company that issue a dividend payout is wealth
A plot of land that is rented out to generate income is wealth
The toll road that keep getting paid by car drivers is wealth
A note about wealth is that it is a positive sum game. This means that when we acquire more wealth, it does not necessarily mean that we have to diminish other people’s ability to acquire more wealth. For example, when Elon Musk became the richest man on earth for owning his Tesla, SpaceX stocks, taking over Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Elon does not destroy Amazon or acquire Jeff’s shares. His stocks (wealth) just became more appreciated by the market and are valued more.
In fact, society as a whole keeps getting wealthier and wealthier. This is especially so when the most abided by religion in most countries today is economic growth. Very rare do we see that the output seen in countries to be consistently negative, unless they are war torn.
This religion of economic growth spurs innovation which in turn increases the size of the pie for everybody. To wit, a poor man today has access to smartphones with access to internet and information. They have access to various sorts of entertainments, public parks and so on. An average man in the 1700s are most likely slaving away working for aristocrats for a meagre salary, with no access to technology and entertainment.
What is the reward of having enormous wealth? Time. When you have enormous wealth as they are assets that produce without much of your active intervention, it gives you time and therefore freedom to focus your energy on any aspect in life that you want to accomplish.
Money Game
Money is the instrument that is used to transfer wealth. It is a form of recognition for the work that has been done for another person. In other words, it is an IOU.
Let’s say you work for a prestigious consulting firm and you earn a handsome salary for working from 9AM to 3AM every Monday to Friday. That money is a form of recognition by the company for your hard work as the company owes you for your time to work for them.
Now we think that money game should definitely be played but it should not be the be all and end all. For two reasons:
Money gets debased by governments. As a matter of fact, the US Dollar, is continuously debased as government can print more of them.
On its own, money (IOU) does not create more money (IOU).
If you think about it, it makes a whole lot of sense. The money that you earn in August 2023 for X consulting company is from a skill that you possess today. In August 2043, that skill that you give to X consulting company might already be obsolete due to technological advancements (lets say ChatGPT’s grandson can replace consultants entirely at that time). In other words, it is reasonable to assume that your recognised contribution at one point in time in the past would diminish in value overtime.
What is the reward of Money Game? Money.
Status Game
In our opinion, status game is the least favourite although it is a necessary evil. Our society will not function without any leader or status holders.
We think that the status game is a 0 sum game, meaning that the status you get, necessarily take other people’s ability to get the status you have. For example, there will only be one president for each country. There will only be one pope for Christianity. So if you become a president or a pope, you are taking other people’s ability to be one.
There are certainly people who play the status games to win more money and wealth. But playing the status games also involve plenty of luck and randomness which we are not in favour. We think that one should be free or wealthy because of merit, not because of their status or luck.
Closing Remarks
After reading this article, which game are you going to start focusing on? To summarize
All of them is hard but one of them, in our opinion, gives a nicer reward.