Wealth as a means to what end?

I found this reading really interesting. I disagreed with most of it, but wow cool argument. Here is my puzzle that I am still trying to figure out: Posner develops an ethical principle of wealth maximization. That is, the principle to guide our behavior is to do whatever will maximize the wealth of a society. The system that he develops around this principle treats wealth as the sole end. Why do we have rights? To maximize wealth. Why do we have markets? To maximize wealth. Why would we have a democracy? It appears to be the wealth maximizing solution but if other systems of justice are more wealth maximizing we should go with that. (And we actually have an oligarchy disguised as a democracy and thats wealth maximizing so go us.) So I'm on board with that internal consistency.

But this still begs the question of why wealth maximization is the right moral principle. It seems like Posner offers multiple, distinct arguments for his case. Maybe this is totally off, but his consent argument to me feels separate from his first argument -- that wealth maximization produces results that we like (by respecting autonomy, promoting utility etc.). If this is the case -- that wealth is a means to the end of some society we like -- Posner has to justify why we actually want that society. He is super vague in this regard. What are the positive outcomes that wealth maximization produces, if it is only a means to some other end (aka a better world.)

Things I have found that hint at the end wealth creates:

He seems to like that it is correlated with utility: "Wealth is positively correlated, although imperfectly so, with utility, but the pursuit of wealth, based as it is on the model of the voluntary market transaction, involves greater respect for individual choice than in classical utilitarianism" (66). He seems to like the virtues it promotes: "The wealth-maximization principle encourages and rewards the traditional "Calvinist" or "Protestant" virtues and capacities associated with economic progress. It may be doubted whether the happiness principle also implies the same constellation of virtues and capacities, especially given the degree of self-denial implicit in adherence to them" (69). It seems to give a nice foundation for justice: "Wealth maximization is a more defensible moral principle also in that it provides a firmer foundation for a theory of distributive and corrective justice" (69). Injustices are things that decrease the wealth of society. Under this definition, his principle does inform a conception of justice. Equating "wrongful with inefficient" It respects autonomy: "To treat the inventor and the idiot equally concerning their moral claim to command over valuable resources does not take seriously the difference between persons. And any policy of redistribution impairs the autonomy of those from whom the redistribution is made" (76). And it has a basis for rights: "To make property rights, although absolute, contingent on transaction costs and subservient or instrumental to the goal of wealth maximization is to give rights less status than many "rights theorists" claim for them" (71).

BUT in his discussion of all these positive attributes of wealth maximization, he treats them not as the ends, but as the means to the end of wealth maximization. So the logic becomes circular. Wealth maximization is good because it produces a society with these great things all balanced properly: autonomy, rights, utility etc.! These things are great because they maximize wealth! But Posner has to prove extrinsically why this is the proper end if wealth maximization is a means to an end, instead of using them to justify wealth maximization.

I think this is why he has the separate argument of consent, which provides an argument for wealth maximization where his principle is not a means to some other end.