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You raise an interesting question which bears on the distinction between classical
political economy and contemporary economics. A succinct definition of the former is "a
study of the nature of wealth and the laws of its production and distribution." Some years
ago I started a thread enquiring about the transition in the discipline, perhaps beginning
with Marshall and most evident in 20th century texts, reflecting greater emphasis on
exchange theory,  determinants of prices, employment, etc.
 
Throughout the Wealth of Nations, Smith indicates the real wealth as the annual produce of
the land and labor of a society or nation. He saw that what made an individual or family
unit rich or "wealthy" reflected in assets both financial and non-financial bore no
necessary relation to the wealth of the aggregate. It took later investigators to pin down
more precisely what is meant by wealth in the politico-economic sense.
 
Roy Davidson 
 
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