> wealth is a bad measure of[...]your contributions to society

To be _abundantly_ clear, I agree with you and your assumptions here - but, please note that you are making some assumptions here about what "success" is defined as, which might explain why other people disagree.

Sure, but with that definition parent’s comment becomes “wealth is a good indicator of wealth”, which while true certainly isn’t useful.

I’m assuming they meant to imply wealth is a measure of positive social impact, which is a bad measure for the reasons I stated. They also might mean it as a proxy for “rightness”, whatever that is, which is even more of a problem but for different reasons.