Was Saddam the wealthiest person ever executed?

December 30, 2006 1:17 AM

Is Saddam Hussein the wealthiest person ever to be executed?

According to this article, at one point Saddam Hussein was worth between 2 and 20 billion dollars, and his family's net worth may have approached $40 billion.

Does this make him the wealthiest person ever to end up being executed? What about various guillotined crowned heads of Europe?

I'm also curious what happened to his money. And, if there are assets still frozen, does his death alter the way they will be disposed of?

Bonus points if you can show me how any living individuals profit directly.

posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry to society & culture (20 comments total)

I think it depends a lot whether you're counting only the person's assets at the time of their execution, or of the total assets they controlled previously, at whenever they were most powerful.

Just working backwards in history, I suspect that some of the Nazis had personal fortunes that would be worth millions, if not more, adjusted for inflation and taking into account the personal power they wielded. Certainly if you included real property (estates, etc.), a few were fabulously wealthy at their peak.

When you get back into the executed monarchs of Europe it gets difficult to judge their 'net worth.' What was Charles I worth as the King of England? Technically he owned all sorts of stuff (all the ships in the Navy, all the Army's weapons, crown jewels, etc.) but they were really possessions of his office, not really his personally.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:29 AM on December 30, 2006

For reference: the best answers to this question will probably include any or all of the following:

a) Net worths, possibly adjusted for inflation
b) a link to an interesting article or authoritative text
c) failing the above, interesting anecdotes about wealthy executed people from history.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 1:46 AM on December 30, 2006

I reckon Louis XVI would've been worth a bit when he copped it. Of course, it's hard to determine relative wealth when comparing somebody who died this afternoon to somebody who died 200 years ago.
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:36 AM on December 30, 2006

I heard the family of Czar Nicholas was rich. He was worth a hell of a lot more than Saddam.
posted by JJ86 at 5:59 AM on December 30, 2006

Don't think the question can be answered. It's almost impossible to correctly determine someone's wealth in a different time. For example, using this calculator a $100 in 1790 is worth anywhere between $2,000 and $6.5 Million today. And that's just staying with USD. Foreign currencies muck it up even more.

I see that Saddam Hussein isn't listed in the 2004 list of
billionaires most likely because they don't include heads of state who have wealth tied to their position. This would seem to include Saddam, which would make him not officially that rich.
posted by Ookseer at 6:10 AM on December 30, 2006

For example, using this calculator a $100 in 1790 is worth anywhere between $2,000 and $6.5 Million today. And that's just staying with USD. Foreign currencies muck it up even more.

That's a bit misleading. The second figure you cite is actually just the value in terms of the $100's relation to the GDP of the nation at that time. It seems a bit unrealistic to suggest that $100 was worth anything near 6.5 million dollars in the late 18th century. You certainly couldn't purchase commensurate consumer goods if you compare those two figures (you couldn't, for example, build a sprawling resort-like home and live off of it for the rest of your life).

However, I do suspect that you're right that it would be impossible to answer this question.
posted by The God Complex at 6:35 AM on December 30, 2006

Well, I won't have the figures you need, so this will fall in the "interesting anecdotes" category.

Pizarro, conqueror of Peru captured Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler, and held him for a while before his execution.

According to the accounts, Atahualpa realized the Spaniards were only interested in gold and he offered them to fill the place they were in with gold if that would buy his liberty. They agreed and he summoned people to bring all the gold they could gather. I've read accounts that people kept coming from remote locations for days and days, carrying gold on their mules and in the end they did fill rooms with it.

It's hard to translate the amounts into modern terms, but the book I have here (Historia General de las Indias, by Francisco Lopez de Gomara) says that Pizarro took most of it, gave the customary fifth to the king, divided some among his main "captains" and even gave some to regular "foot soldiers", even if "he didn't have to."

Some of those regular foot soldiers, the book says, lived out of that money for many years -and we all know that at the time los españoles in America were quite partial to excess and squandering - and the book says that "never before soldiers had amassed such wealth with so little risk."

This, unfortunately didn't help Atahualpa and he ended up being executed by Pizarro.

So, the argument could be made that it wasn't his money, but one could also "counter argue" saying that if he had the ability to make people produce such amount of gold for him, it could be considered his.

If people were willing to give up all the gold they had for him, and Peru was one of the two largest sources of wealth for the Spanish Empire, taking it to its pinnacle, perhaps Atahualpa could be considered to be among the wealthiest people to ever have been executed.



And this is, by far, the longest comment/answer I've posted, sorry for that.
posted by micayetoca at 6:39 AM on December 30, 2006 [2 favorites]

Interesting question. I'd say that for former heads of state the best measure of wealth should be based on their nation's GDP when they governed. According to this ranking Russia in 1913 had 8.6% of world GDP to France's 5.7% in the 1700's, putting the Romanovs ahead of Louis XVI. However, GDP doesn't measure accumulated wealth, so the figures for South America don't include the many year's worth of GDP that the Incan gold represented.
posted by thrako at 6:52 AM on December 30, 2006

Atahuallpa is a pretty good answer. The books I have read usually describe the ransom as filling a room about 22x17x8, and considered the largest ransom ever paid. That's almost 3,000ft³, and considering the price of gold today ($20,000+ per KG) that's quite a bit of wealth...
posted by cklennon at 7:53 AM on December 30, 2006

A bit of Googling suggests that the room was 32×17 ft, and filled up to the height of a man's arm (of course, there are many conflicting estimates of the size).

At current gold prices, that would be $30,394,898,252.57!
posted by matthewr at 8:06 AM on December 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

I don't know exactly what her net worth was, but taking inflation into account, Marie Antoinette was certainly one of the richest people ever executed. Her extravagances at a time when her people were suffering was the main reason they killed her.
posted by HotPatatta at 8:08 AM on December 30, 2006

At current gold prices, that would be $30,394,898,252.57!

Like everything we've suggested this is a flawed measurement.
Using the current price of gold assumes that the value of gold in terms of other goods is the same today as it was in the 1500's. That is, it assumes that an ounce of gold would go as far now as it did then.
posted by thrako at 9:43 AM on December 30, 2006

Like everything we've suggested this is a flawed measurement.

Well, of course. My comment was more along the lines of "woo big numbers!" than "this is an accurate way of comparing wealth".
posted by matthewr at 9:46 AM on December 30, 2006

I think the amount matthewr gave is based in volume, based on the room's dimensions, so the figure should stand.

Now, if you mean "perhaps that gold wasn't so valuable for Incas" you could be right, but it still was what Spaniards sought more than anything else and it is what fueled the Spanish Empire, more than silver, more than cacao.

One could further add that the amount that matthewr estimated represents the gold paid as ransom for Atahualpa, when one could argue that the gold that Spaniards continued to extract from Peru for decades and decades could be considered part of Atahualpa's wealth at the time of his death, given the sense of communal property Incas had.

Or we could say that all that money didn't properly belong to him. After all we are only idly speculating. As in the case of Saddam's (or Marie Antoinette, for that matter) net worth.
posted by micayetoca at 9:57 AM on December 30, 2006

I think the amount matthewr gave is based in volume, based on the room's dimensions, so the figure should stand.
Now, if you mean "perhaps that gold wasn't so valuable for Incas" you could be right, but it still was what Spaniards sought more than anything else and it is what fueled the Spanish Empire, more than silver, more than cacao.

I meant that both the quantity of gold in circulation and world GDP has changed since the 1530's. It is not clear whether a bar of gold brought more or less then than it does now in any country.
Including yet to be extracted minerals is an interesting idea. But if we include future mineral production we should probably include future farm prodution and everything else produced in the territory. By this measure I'd say either Russia or France would win.
posted by thrako at 12:30 PM on December 30, 2006

That is, it assumes that an ounce of gold would go as far now as it did then.

I'm comfortable with reading about things that are predicated on that assumption, and am able to evaluate them. It makes for a very dull set of answers if all they say is "this question can't be answered."
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 1:16 PM on December 30, 2006

thrako:
That is, it assumes that an ounce of gold would go as far now as it did then.

Gold is pretty much as inflation proof as you can be. One oz of gold in Roman times would buy a fine toga. One oz of gold today will buy a fine suit. Whatever the numbers are, worth for worth it keeps pretty steady regardless of millenium.
posted by devbrain at 1:30 PM on December 30, 2006

In terms of potential wealth, Jesus was the ultimate trust-fund baby. (And he really didn't have to wait for Father to retire; he could have turned water into Château Pétrus as easily as vin du table.)
posted by rob511 at 1:45 PM on December 30, 2006

So far we have:

Saddam
Charles I
Louis XVI
Jesus (I'd throw this one out on any of several technicalities, except that I really don't wish to argue with a bunch of Jesus freaks)
Atahualpa
Czar Nicholas et famille

Any other nominees? Anyone who wasn't a head of state or a major religious figure?
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 4:37 PM on December 30, 2006

[a few comments removed, please take the gold derail elsewhere, thanks.]
posted by jessamyn at 4:57 PM on December 30, 2006