Is wealth inequality necessarily a sign that something's gone wrong?
Conversation
Replying to
Inequality alone? No.
People having extreme difficulty meeting the basics of food, shelter, clothing, etc.?
Yeah that starts to look like a systemic problem.
1
2
Replying to
if you look at the data, the societies in which there was the least "wealth inequality" were also the societies that had the least technological advancements to benefit all people, and had lower overall quality of life for all. "wealth inequality" is a suspicious measure at best
2
8
Replying to
I think it’s a matter of degrees.
Some wealth inequality, sure.
A tiny group of super rich, and the rest of the population at or below subsistence levels, nope.
1
12
Replying to
Increasingly I think it’s a problem, not because inequality itself is a problem (in a modern economy it’s probably a sign that a lot of innovation is going on, actually), but because enough people will think it’s a problem that their reaction is likely to be a problem
6
Replying to
Not unless it's extreme. Studies on the Gini coefficient show that the countries with the most wealth inequality tend to have the highest rates of violence.
3