Wealth

Wealth is always a relative term. In a primitive society where little is produced, even the richest can't match the material well-being available to the poor of an industrialized economy. In the Middle Ages, even the mightiest kings lacked the basic amenities that nearly everyone in the United States now takes for granted... things like central heating, indoor plumbing, and fresh vegetables in the winter.

— Peter Schiff; How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

But the fact that there are degrees of wealth has always struck some as being inherently unfair. Central in this unease is the belief that the rich become that way because they take wealth from others, thereby creating the poor. In modern economics, some have even labeled this idea "the labor theory of value," which states that profit is created by paying workers less than they are worth. In this view, entrepreneurs, like Able or giant corporations for that matter, can get rich only if they succeed in making others poor.

This idea has everything to do with moral posturing, and nothing to do with reality. The reason that the rich get that way (at least initially) is that they offer something of value to others. Able offers loans to those who have inadequate savings. If he profits, it's only because the service he provides is valuable to others.

— Peter Schiff; How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes