Wealth encompasses all of the goods (including services) that are subjectively valued by human beings, as discussed in Section 4. Wealth must be originally be generated through productive activity before it can be either consumed by those who create it or seized by others. (An apparent exception is the wealth represented by natural resources, but even the latter acquire their value through productive human action, since a subjective value is by definition an entity or condition that humans act to gain and/or keep.) But if wealth always arises through productive action, then it can be obtained only by one of two means: (1) through production; or (2) through expropriation from its original producers.

We may refer to any human capability of acquiring subjective values (wealth) as power. The two means by which wealth can be obtained imply two fundamentally different kinds of power:

Power over nature is the capability of creating new values, including new ideas, by peaceful action. Crusoe's power over nature enables him to create new goods, originally by applying his labor to the resources afforded by his natural environment. Later this power may be enhanced by employing the capital goods that he has already created, or by trading the goods he has created for values offered in voluntary exchange by Friday. Power over nature has also been called economic power or the economic means of action (by sociologist Franz Oppenheimer).

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