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Comment by Mitchhhs | Hacker News Reader

Is inequality a feature or a bug of capitalism? Seems like the general thinking is that its a feature in-so-much as it encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, etc. It seems like it becomes a bug when it reaches a level in which it creates a positive feedback loop of more inequality.

As with anything, i've noticed the discussion is really about how much, not should it exist at all. Almost every debate in American politics is painted as black and white, whereas the actual debate is where we fall on a spectrum. It seems like everyone disagrees so much, but really I think we are haggling over a slight deviation to the right or to the left and because we have to talk about everything in such black and white terms, the real discussion gets lost. We all agree on much more than we disagree on.

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"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free." -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Alike and equal are not the same thing at all.”

― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

It's crazy to me how both capitalist authoritarians and state communist authoritarians will argue that "equal" means "the same". Communists argue this in order to convince you that in order to be equal you have to be equally subservient to the state. Capitalists will argue this to convince you that you can never expect equality since that would mean state communism.

Most are drawing a distinction for equality - it's about equal opportunity, not equal outcome.

Yes, and the big disconnect seems to be an inability to recognize that access to health care, education, child care, and even a poverty safety net are fantastic ways to give people opportunity. I really think the basic philosophical divides between conservative and liberal America is not as great as it seems- people are just really easily distracted by a media and political system that profits tremendously by making people hate and fear each other.

Except all (positive) outcomes are opportunities in another context. It's a continuous process.

The most obvious place to see this is looking at parents' economic outcomes versus their kids' development opportunities, but it doesn't even have to be generational.

If you have a sack of money (outcome), you automatically have many more options (opportunity) for creating a larger stack of money. Imagine a fair and random gambling game: Insolvent players are removed from the game, so the player with the deepest pockets at the beginning has the best opportunity of winning everything.

That got black and white quick.

Respectfully, did you read the article? The article argues that it is not capitalism -- competition in a free market -- driving the gap between the top 1% and the rest. Rather it is the efforts on the part of the 1% to monopolize, to drive out competition and protect their position that is the cause.

Which is actually the typical end state of real capitalism as opposed to imaginary capitalist models. Cartel (explicit or implicit collusion) or monopoly. This is because for any single agent cooperation is beneficial even if it is not for the efficiency of the system as a whole. Bigger agents have more potential there. (Purchase removes an agent and competition from the system.) Agents collude on each transaction when they probe the market for expected price. Including for services and labour.

The other systems have this bug as well. Somme people have an intense drive to accumulate power, no matter the cost to others, or rationalize the cost away. Worst are those of them with bad ideas or totally irresponsible.

> Is inequality a feature or a bug of capitalism?

Where does crony capitalism fit in?

It's a feature, not of capitalism, but of human interactions in general. (It should not have escaped our attention that any time an "alternative to capitalism" is tried it inevitably winds up with wealth and power even more heavily concentrated, this time in the hands of the people whose job it was to ensure that wealth and power were shared fairly.)

And, to a large extent, of animals. I suppose there are some animal species where all members are more or less equal, but they're probably mostly solitary animals which rarely interact with each other. In social species, massive inequalities, particularly between males, are the norm.

Good point. Pointing out the flaws of the current system and actually realizing improvements are two different things.

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