You seem to be making OP's point for them.
You seem to be making OP's point for them.
The OP's point is that wealth is created and bestowed by society. The rebuttal is that it is an interaction between skills and environment, which may or may not involve other humans.
The Amazonian hunter has a form of wealth with no dependence on other humans. And yet it is as fragile as the rich person's wealth once you change the environment. To that rebuttal I would add that merely bestowing riches on people does not generally result in wealth. The classic case in point being that lottery winners generally wind up no better off than they were previously, and this reversion is surprisingly quick.
What human society and industry has done is create the possibility of great wealth. Untold wealth. Wealth undreamt of in the past. Aristocracy in Elizabethan times would envy the average US citizen today. And not for the technological marvels that we would normally list - topping the list of things they would wish that they had is that our medical care lets us expect to see our children grow up, and our dental care means that we do not regularly go through a level of pain that they took for granted.
But wealth remains an interaction of skills and environment. It is not merely granted by society.
I'd like you to elaborate more your idea in terms of the relation between skill, society and environment. Assuming all three influence each other.
That's the main point. It is not. You need society: > Suppose any rich man wakes up in the Amazon jungle with nothing to his name, no clothes and no money. He may in fact be the richest man on earth, but in the jungle it doesn't matter.
He has his skills, and a rich environment full of resources. But he lacks what society provides: law and order, education, skilled workers, media that spread ideas, etc...