In our modern world, where technology enables the creation and consolidation of truly incomprehensible wealth, we are living among the richest individuals in history. However, the world’s wealthiest individuals lived in earlier times, in eras in which pure wealth was harder to measure. Some people are unfathomably rich.
From Genghis Khan to J.P. Morgan
Estimating wealth in bygone eras is difficult because what it means to be wealthy varies widely from epoch to epoch.
- Instead, it’s best to look at who, in their own time and place, was so rich that they personally defined the value of money.
Bottom line
If you’re blown away by the idea that fewer than 100 people control as much wealth as half the world today, imagine how concentrated money used to be.
Mansa Musa
In 1324, Mansa (meaning Emperor) Musa of the Malian Empire went on hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. He showered the cities he visited with gold, giving it away to the poor and, according to one account, building a new mosque every Friday.
- Realizing that he had personally caused a wave of hyperinflation that plagued an entire region, he embarked on a quantitative easing program, snapping up all of Cairo’s gold on loan at a high rate of interest.
Atahualpa
When dealing with the Incan Empire, issues of economic context are especially hairy
- It is the only complex, large-scale civilization ever to develop without any semblance of a market. There was no notion of money at all.
- Everything was controlled by the Inca, with the Emperor controlling everything: food, clothing, luxury goods, houses, and people. As a man, you served the emperor as a farmer, laborer, craftsman, or soldier. In exchange, you were provided with everything you needed to survive.
