Is wealth inequality necessarily bad? Genuine question here.
As with everything else in the universe, it works for some, it doesn't work for others and there are plenty who have almost literally no opportunities for whatever reason.
In western nations we think that most people have basically the same opportunities but if you are from a low-income family, you are likely to have more issues with your family, potentially more emotional and financial dependents. If you have been knocked back too many times, you can lose confidence and not have anyone to encourage you.
I guess in moderation, wage differences can motivate but at the point someone drops too low, they easily get caught in a cycle and then it becomes societies problem.
Until that becomes part of the social contract - wealth inequality for some is a prison or death sentence or the means by which one is enslaved by their wages.
if it was possible for an accumulation of wealth within one group to essentially divide humanity in different groups that could never be changed despite skill level compitance or morals of the individuals in each group would that be bad? so someone whose great great granddaddy did something now has power for no reason. and their line of decendands wont be able to spend money as fast as they accumulate it - without even understanding how or why.
wealth accumulation and private serveices (like education and healthcare) kind of make this an inevitability imho.
AFAIK its not one person being paid more than another thats the issue.. its those that are paid because they were born with money and add nothing to society that i think bothers people.
EDIT: a good book -The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists- for considering capitlism and the accumulation of wealth (also shock how relevant it is still 120 years later): https://freeclassicebooks.com/Robert%20Tressell/The%20Ragged...
The game is incredibly competitive and challenging and just understanding that is difficult.
Sure, but how many wealthy people inherited their wealth and contribute nothing? It's actually a tiny fraction. It is quite common for people from better off backgrounds to be more successful, but arguably that's result of the previous generation investing in their kids and benefiting society as a result. Most doctors come from above average wealth families for example, but we want good doctors, right? The solution to that problem is better public education, not taxing the rich into the ground.
I can't imagine anyone here thinks idle trust fund babies are a wonderful benefit to society, there's a good argument for steep inheritance taxes, but equally it's not actually a significant problem in our economy. It's just a hot button topic that upsets people, but it's really a distraction.
I trust fund babies are the extreme on the spectrum but any time your parents wealth is the biggest factor in whether or not you are a success the system is broken.
imho i see many people who had support or investment from their parents doing very well when they are average or below average abilty.
Education is ulimately the absolute most important thing.. a nation (or humanity as a whole) has a limited number of assest: land, infrastructure and people. the people being the most dynamic with the largest value multipliers possible. IMHO its a no brainer that you want to invest in people via education as a top priority as it will in turn multiply up all other investment (and anything that means money has a bigger sway than ability i think is a bit broken).
To be clear i am not looking for the systems to be perfect, thats silly.. but i do prefer for example the idea of private education being illegal to ensure that grades actually mean something (not just how much money was spent on you).
Also as a side note i belive that people who think they are worth many times more than others within their oragnisation dont understand how their value is derived and where it came from.. so while i dont seek for all salaries to be equal, i do think within an org they should all be within a certain range (e.g. highest paid no more than 5 or 10 times lowest paid).
I have made / saved millions of dollars with a few hours work - but it was the existance of the org, the customers and the history that gave me the chance to do such good work more than it was my skill. people who can deliver solutions are actually more common than you think - good requirements and problems ripe for solving are thin on the ground.
Clearly productive investment is better, that last point is a bit tongue in cheek, but there’s at least some truth to it. The least productive use I could think of would be buying bitcoin, which is basically just funding turning electricity into heat.
I mean, honestly, your narrative is very much in line with trickle down economics - which we know doesn’t work…
Someone gives up most of their life to make the investor even richer. In exchange they get barely enough to eat and put a roof over their head (in some cases not even that). What a fair deal, praise the investor!
It's the average persons absolute amount of wealth going up that matters.
I think the real question is: Is an uneven distribution necessary to drive absolute levels of wealth up more quickly ? What level of wealth inequality produces the most growth ?
There's nothing stopping wealth inequality from raising at the same time as living standards for the world's poorest do. In fact, it's exactly what's happening right now.
On a global scale, it may be possible to show that the world's poorest are improving. I hope so! But when people talk about income inequality, they're generally referring to national economies, where living standards for the poorest have been declining as the number of billionaires skyrockets.
So when arguing about inequality, we're actually arguing just how much inequality exactly the system can work with.