The process of moving forward requires that those basics are covered or at least not blocked for everyone.
True, but before the idea of "wealth" we just followed the herds and foraged for berries or planted things along their regular route. Then some society stock piled (either through war or mass foraging, or by pure luck they just had tons of dodo birds or something in the area) and were able to wait for a crop to come.
I'm not saying that there aren't other forms of wealth. My ONLY point is that having stockpiles of food, water and other necessities can be considered wealth.
