That’s the subject of Thomas Sowell’s column today. The trouble that Sowell identifies is one common to erroneous thinking on many topics, namely the insistence on seeing abstractions as real entities. “The world” is just an abstraction and it makes no sense to speak of its wealth. Only people own things and they usually come to own them through productive effort. Some people are more productive than others, but egalitarians get all hot and bothered if you point that out.