The full name of Adam Smith’s celebrated composition, The Wealth of Nations, is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. A few years ago, Israel found a wellspring that is bound to cause great wealth: natural gas, and plenty of it. To capitalize on the bonanza wisely, the state founded the Israeli Citizens’ Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that will see that sudden windfalls do not tilt the economy off balance. This month, the fund started releasing money into the market, and the race for the cash for grabs has started. To me, this is a sign that we are misusing it before we even started.
The wealth of a nation is not measured by its capital, and it is not increased by “invisible hands,” as Smith referred to the power of self-interest to benefit society. On the contrary, self-interest is so powerful today that it has become humanity’s chief destructive force.
Today, true, sustainable wealth is measured by the level of a society’s cohesion. If we are starting off by fighting over the spoils, then we are turning the boon into a bust. If wealth only increases our division, then it will also weaken us on every level, economic and otherwise.
Our valuable resources, especially in the State of Israel, are human resources, not financial or monetary resources. Instead of focusing on wealth, we should focus on social vitality, on what will make the people of our country thrive, and it is certainly not more money.
Connection will make us prosperous, create jobs, and cut unnecessary expenses (of which there are a great many). The “revenue” from these operations will bring in far more than any sovereign wealth fund can ever yield.
All of the problems we are facing, from soaring inflation through delayed shipments to food and semiconductor shortages, are symptoms of our social division and pervasive enmity between people. When we mend these, we will not only solve our social problems, but we will also heal our economy, and heal our relations with our neighbors, who are mocking our shows of dissension and despise us for our social disunity.
Photo Caption:
London-based Energean’s drill ship begins drilling at the Karish natural gas field offshore Israel in the east Mediterranean May 9, 2022. Picture taken May 9, 2022. REUTERS/Ari Rabinovitch