I personally found it hard to separate the two for many year, and fell in the pattern of unifying them. Cynical outlook has been a helpful protecting mechanism, though no longer as useful, as I'm trying to find and play more win-win games.
There are some things that really don't change, and I guess that can be a source of cynicism. The poor will always be among you, lying politicians, the greedy rich, etc. But I'd argue that isn't cause for inaction, quite the opposite, though I can see nihilists just retreating to their beds in despair.
Re: things that really don't change, I'd say "until they do". Plenty of examples in history where the whole system switches to a different equilibrium point (for example as in "Inadequate Equilibria" book).
When I'm referring to cynicism, I'm talking about the difference between the mindset of "these will never change", vs "these are attractor points in the current social system, which all history so far have been used, but the system may have other equilibriums and solutions for which X=`the rich are not greedy`".
Hope that's helpful!
The things that don't change I refer to, I really mean human nature, and I really think that doesn't change much. Some people just want to watch the world burn, etc, some people are greedy, narcissistic, lazy, psychotic, etc.
The cause for optimism, is that we can change society to better deal with the nature of the beast, bring out the best, and suppress the ugly. There's lots of work to do!
We live in a world on near limitless abundance. We already live in a potential post-scarcity world.
The only reason there are poor among us IS the greedy rich; but the greedy rich isn't some faceless, abstract, unkillable cosmic god. They have names and addresses; what they have can be taken from them as has happened many many times throughout history.
Things can change, sometimes slowly, sometimes incredibly quickly.
We have seen the impossible become inevitable over and over in the last few decades, and yet it still seems impossible for people to imagine the "impossible". I wonder if there is a name for that sort of fallacious thinking.
The opportunity is to make the currency of that hierarchy something far above basic needs, IMHO. Perhaps this could be a genuine use-case for cryptocurrencies, so that the ultra wealthy can 'keep score' in maths, rather than mega-yachts, private jets, dark satanic mills, etc.
Only if you ignore every society that that ever existed without a strict economic hierarchy, sure.
I consider myself an anarchist, as in, against unnecessary hierarchy, yet I still believe some hierarchy is inevitable, even necessary and desirable.