Emerson criticises a social environment in which wealth is treated mainly as a source of display, comfort and amusement. By saying that wealth is made a “toy”, he suggests that material resources are being used for personal indulgence rather than for serious or productive purposes. His description of urban society as “babyish” is deliberately provocative and reflects his distrust of excessive luxury.

In the surrounding passage of Wealth, Emerson contrasts conspicuous consumption with a different understanding of wealth: the capacity to turn natural resources, labour and capital into useful action. For him, wealth is most significant when it gives people the power to carry ideas into practice. The statement therefore forms part of a broader argument about the purpose of economic resources, opposing passive consumption to productive capability and purposeful use.

Full quotation

“Society in large towns is babyish, and wealth is made a toy. The life of pleasure is so ostentatious, that a shallow observer must believe that this is the agreed best use of wealth, and, whatever is pretended, it ends in cosseting. But, if this were the main use of surplus capital, it would bring us to barricades, burned towns, and tomahawks, presently. Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design. Power is what they want—not candy—power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought, which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the Universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied.”