I think that in some sense, to each of us that elusive dream of wealth is a little like a very small child’s dream of what it would be like to be a grown up. When we are little, the thing we see as the greatest advantage of adults is their ability to do as they like. Grown ups don’t have to ask permission. They make their own decisions. They have lots and lots of money and they buy whatever they want to.

Because the freedom of a small child is so restricted, because everyone is bigger and stronger, because a child is spared most of the heart-breaking decisions that adults have to make every day, a toddler or preschooler might get the impression that the life of an adult is mostly a matter of gratifying every possible whim. As we get older, we see the other side of adulthood, the part that involves taking responsibility and exercising self-restraint. We learn that being a grownup is often about not doing what you want. Sometimes it is about doing what you would rather not do.

Is it possible that if we were actually wealthy (by whatever our own definition of wealth might be) we would never allow ourselves to do the things we dream of doing now?

To have wealth and to keep it requires a certain level of maturity. Having money doesn’t make people wealthy, as many lottery winners have learned to their detriment. When someone unprepared for the responsibility of handling money comes into a lot of it, the money is soon squandered, and the person who had it is often no better off than before, and sometimes a great deal worse off.

To assume that a wealthy person is just like any other person, only with more money, is to mistake size with maturity. Some babies are born very large. Others are born small. But it is not their size that determines how mature they are. To estimate who is an adult and who is a child, we have to look at the proportions, not the absolute size. A six foot tall baby is still a baby. An adult who only weighs eighty pounds is still an adult. Any artist knows that it’s the proportions that betray real maturity.

Fetuses are parasites who prey on the host mother. Babies are dependents who consume but do not produce. As children mature, they are able to do more and more for themselves, until eventually they arrive at a point when they begin to support their own weight and consume an amount equal to that which they produce. To be an adult capable of reproducing, you have to do more than that. You need to produce more than you consume, so that you can support dependents who are unable to support themselves.

The proportions of a child are the proportions of a consumer. The proportions of an adult are those of a producer.

In economic terms, what this means is that an adult is someone who has finished growing and is not always engaged in consumption. When we start earning, our concern is that we be able to feed ourselves. This concern never goes away, of course, but as maturity sets in, less time and energy is spent on getting and using, and more is spent on conserving, protecting and maintaining what you already have.

An immature economy, like a small child, is concerned only with growth. But when maturity sets in, growth ceases, and a period of relative stability sets in. Nobody keeps growing indefinitely. A really wealthy person is not one constantly engaged in making more money. A wealthy person is one concerned with maintaining the economic status quo for himself and his dependents.