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Comment by dayyan | Hacker News Reader

The acid test of intelligence is if one believes in a zero sum economy or not.

I don't think there's a real contradiction between the propositions:

1. The economy is not a zero-sum game.

2. The new gilded age concentrates wealth in a way that is harmful to free enterprise, detrimental to the economy, and bad for the world.

In what way is any of this wealth distribution harmful to free enterprise? The things actually harmful to free enterprise are not even on this chart.

I would recommend you to just just read up on antitrust legislation and why we have it generally.

Monopoly may lead to wealth inequality but you're confusing causation with correlation. Witnessed wealth inequality does not necessarily signal large scale monopoly

The wealth concentration is a symptom of a dysfunctional economy based around rent-seeking monopolies. If you address that, the wealth equality comes as a result thanks to the non-zero sum nature of the economy, as more people are able to operate businesses in a fair way.

This is almost exactly the situation that resulted during the first gilded age with standard oil. Antitrust legislation works wonders if it has teeth. Currently it does not.

The current richest man on the planet makes his money not from economic rent but from first mover advantage in the electric car market, first mover advantage in the private space market, and first mover advantage in the online payments market.

What part of this seeks rent?

It is exceptionally easy for Americans to fund and start businesses at this point

Significant wealth inequality is a existential threat to the 'free' part of both enterprises, and the society around them.

I think there's a case to be made against generational wealth on the basis that it can suppress free enterprise by acting monopolistically, capturing a regulatory environment, and/or by draining liquidity from an economy. But that is clearly not the case being made by most of the people who harp on wealth inequality. Free enterprise would eventually lead to inequality all over again, so obviously that's gotta go too /s

And then there are people who use this argument against redistribution and as a pro inequality argument.

The pie gets bigger in more equal societies.

That is the real acid test.

The pie gets bigger as long there is room for economic growth, which points to our finite planet and a zero-sum economy after all. When the non-zero wealth creation is only in the form of eg. circular investment, as we see it today, i would dismiss it as a detached numbers game.

The economy is not zero sum, so new wealth is being created. But that does not say anything about who receives that new wealth.

Here, let me touch that up for you:

"Those who disagree with me are big dumb."

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