The meaning of wealth.

"In the mid-18th century a group of economic theorists,
led by David Hume (1711–1776) and Adam Smith (1723–1790),
challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines —
such as the belief that the world's wealth remained constant,
and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state."  [Wikipedia on Capitalism]

Hume and Smith were, of course wrong. 
The world's wealth (the biosphere) is finite and constant,
though a state's wealth (artificial, monetary, military)
can be elastically huge.

Smith and Sympathy.