But this only works if there is true equality of opportunity with completely open universal access to education, health, basic tech and tools, high quality unbiased news, and social opportunities.
The real cause of inequality is privileged parents trying to tilt the scales for their kids and their social class.
You may say "That's only natural" - but so was cannibalism until we worked out that it's a really stupid idea and does a lot more harm than good.
The real costs of unearned "elite" family privilege are almost unimaginable. We're so used to how things are that we can't even see how much this arrangement has blocked progress in every discipline.
Not only does it pollute politics, democracy, and the media, hoard resources uselessly, and cause untold human suffering, it also guarantees that most of the talent in each generation is suppressed and wasted.
I really don’t think this is true in a meaningful way. Despite your appeal to cannibalism (of all things), it certainly is natural for people to want to help their family and friends. Without that instinct, we have neither.
Whatever the solution to inequality, it will need to take into account that people like helping people they like. This is why social programs like free healthcare and education are so important - we need to neutralise the benefit of “tilting the scales”, rather than asking people to change perfectly reasonable behaviour.
My point is that the desire to “tilt the scales for their kids and their social class” seems innate, and any mechanism that we create to improve equality needs to take this into account at a fundamental level, or it will either be rejected or compromised.
It doesn't work the other way, though. As with any complex dynamic system, the relationship between opportunity and inequality is neither unidirectional nor linear. Consider that there are two well known systems where opportunity is very low. The one you obviously had in mind is perfect enforced equality, often associated with communism[1]. The other is most commonly referred to as feudalism[2]. In other words, both very low and very high levels of inequality result in near-zero opportunity. The interesting range is in the middle - another hallmark of complex systems BTW. When most people refer to wealth inequality they mean a level beyond which opportunity is driven back down, and argument should proceed on that basis. Presenting this as "zero inequality with zero opportunity vs. non-zero amounts of both" is both counterfactual and non-constructive, to say the least.
[1] No actual communist system at significant scale ever had equality as a feature. More often, the medium of exchange shifted from hard currency to some form of reputation, standing, etc. but the inequality most definitely still existed.
[2] Apparently historians consider "feudal" to be a hopelessly ambiguous term. In this context "manorial" might be more accurate but nobody would recognize it.
This is really tautological if you define opportunity as advantage over others.
It's not a joke, because some students do get "free" entry to Harvard, due to their parents paying for it.
I don't know. I do think the world would be better off if we eliminated homelessness, hunger, student loan debt, medical debt, and political campaign financing. These are some of the worst consequences of economic inequality in society.
> Or are you simply pointing out that life is not fair?
Well, I personally don't think that so-called "meritocracy" is fair or ideal. I was born with some advantages over the majority of people, and my academic talents started to show at a relatively young age (with no "hard work" — it was easy work!), but I don't think I "deserved" to be born that way, nor do I think that I "deserve" more money than other people as a result of my advantages.
I understand capitalistic supply and demand, and that may be a decent economic system. It's not an inherently ethical system, however.
Separate questions:
(1) Should we accept some level of economic inequality in society?
(2) Are the wealthy more "deserving" of their wealth than the non-wealthy?
It's perfectly consistent to answer (1) Yes and (2) No to those questions.
Capitalism is an economic system, not an ethical system. The "invisible hand of the market" is not God handing out rewards and punishment, though some people seem to believe that.
Even if we grant the proposition that a good way for society-wide progress is to harness the desire of some to have superior positions by forcing them to work hard at creating value for others, it doesn't really follow that inheritance is a good idea. Indeed, you could argue that it's just the opposite, if we really want a nation of hard workers, we have to make sure the youth can't get away with being lazy just because of some historic success that they didn't have any part in.
It’s saying “Because this person is a Jones, they deserve a spot at Yale even though others are more academically deserving, and we will pay you for that privilege.”
This is also why grade inflation happens at these institutions: “You can’t fail him, he’s a Jones!”