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junkscience2017

sounds like you are needlessly wound-up about this. it is merely a thought-experiment detailing some amusing anecdotes regarding the progress of society. your idea that this is some rebuttal to undermine the issue of inequality seems to be your strawman...if you look at it from another perspective, much of the progress addressed in the article has resulted from the democratization of economic growth

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We don't have to, and shouldn't, read this article in isolation. The author is a pretty hardcore libertarian economist. If you search this blog for "inequality" you'll come up with a bunch of articles revealing that he thinks inequality is at worst irrelevant and at best a good thing:

http://cafehayek.com/?s=inequality

Example quote: "Second, in a market economy rising monetary inequality is evidence of the expansion of choice and diversity made possible by economic growth. As society becomes materially richer – that is, as consumption goods become less costly and more abundant even for poor people – individuals enjoy a greater range of options of how to spend their time and lives."

Given this context, it would be bizarre if this article was not an argument against addressing inequality.

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