Relational Wealth: Definition and Characteristics

This paper introduces relational wealth as a category distinct from the wealth of classical political economy. The wealth of the mercantilist tradition is consumable, separable from its holder, operationally measurable in monetary terms, and often secured through symbolic interventions of power. Relational wealth departs from each of these. It can be non-consumable, it is part of the experiential structure of the subjects who hold it rather than a possession held apart from them, and its reproduction generates new value and new circuits of value. In many cases it does not admit of quantitative measure. We define relational wealth and state five characteristics that mark it off from the classical concept: non-consumability, inseparability from the subject, generativity, resistance to quantification, and independence from symbolic power.