They didn't create it in a vacuum and at some point if they're given too much everything will collapse anyway (the economy needs people wealthy enough to buy the stuff rich businessmen produce). So, try to imagine what a society where 99% of people are forced to share just 1% of the wealth would look like or how that would even be sustained. I mean, really.

They didn't create it in a vacuum and at some point if they're given too much everything will collapse anyway (the economy needs people wealthy enough to buy the stuff rich businessmen produce). So, try to imagine what a society where 99% of people are forced to share just 1% of the wealth would look like or how that would even be sustained. I mean, really. — Baden

Okay, so let's analyse what would happen if 1% owned as much as 99%.

The 99% would live no worse than they ever lived in the past. They actually have the same wealth they had in the past, the only difference would be that they're not participating in the growth of wealth that the 1% is experiencing. That's why they own less and less relatively - new wealth keeps being created, but they're not the ones creating it, so they don't have it. What's wrong with that?

You see that big spike in wealth in the previous graph? Most of that new wealth goes to the top 1%, since they're the ones creating it. They are creators of wealth, not consumers. Now, some of the wealth also goes to the bottom 99% - I mean pretty much everyone in developed countries today lives better than in the 1800s.

the economy needs people wealthy enough to buy the stuff rich businessmen produce — Baden

Yeah, their wealth is not affected. The bottom 99% are as rich as they ever were, in fact they're somewhat richer than they were 200 years ago. And the economy needs both low-value transactions in high volume (selling to the middle class, poor, etc.) and high-value transactions in lower volume (selling to the rich, other businesses, etc.)

How can the 99% be any richer if they don't create wealth? :s To be rich you have to do something useful for others. For many others. If they don't do that, they'll remain at low values of wealth and won't participate in wealth creation.

What would the 1% do if the bottom 99% didn't work for them, purchase their products or services, pay their portion of taxes to help perpetuate the system which disproportionately benefits the wealthy, etc.?

At the very least it would seem to be more of a symbiotic relationship between the wealthy and their less 'successful' counterparts than is being suggested in this antagonistic scenario (I could very well be misinterpreting your intention), and without the latter group the former would not have been able to achieve what they have.

IMO I think there's an important distinction to be made between pursuing economic equality to an excessive degree, which would negate differences in talent, hard work, and the like, and the sort of sociopathic, Ayn Randian justification of boundless greed with its corresponding contempt of the masses that you seem to be either supporting or playing devil's advocate for, Agustino.

I sense a bit of hyperbole and false dichotomy being employed to make a point, although I could be wrong. I'd imagine that being ridiculously rich and generous aren't mutually exclusive, and that one can be financially successful while also feeling a sense of gratitude and indebtedness to the larger community to which one belongs.

But I'll admit that I don't approach this topic under the assumption that things like economic growth and continued technological development should be pursued for their own sake, regardless of the impact these have on individuals, communities, the environment, etc. The assumption seems to be that pursuing this path raises the quality of life for everyone, and for this the wealthy and creative 1% should be appreciated by the rest of us.

IF I approached it from that standpoint then I'd imagine I'd find your argument much more compelling. I'd question whether there's strong link to be found between personal happiness/well-being and a thriving economy which often appears to place the pursuit of profit above all other aims. Perhaps there's a compromise position of sorts which would embrace economic growth while also subordinating it to, say, something like the 'higher' values and aspirations of the people who make up the community.

Of course that doesn't mean I'd want to return to some romanticized pre-modern era of agrarian simplicity, but I also wouldn't be quick to dismiss the idea that a few important things have been lost in the drive towards unrestrained economic development.

The thing is, the real problem isn't that the 1% own a disproportionate amount of wealth - as disgusting as it is. It's that that wealth is used to entrench the means of wealth creation in that bracket while keeping that means out of the hands of the 99%. The problem isn't to be located in the inequality of distribution - that's just surface level, symptomatics: a re-distributive response, for example, would still keep in place the very system through which wealth accumulated there in the first place. The problem is at the system-level which widens the channels of upward-flowing wealth while purposefully narrowing the channels of downward-flowing wealth.

The individual talents of this or that entrepreneur-flavour-of-the-month is entirely irrelevant. As usual the focus on the individual is simply sociologically inane and obscures the real issues.

What would the 1% do if the bottom 99% didn't work for them, purchase their products or services, pay their portion of taxes to help perpetuate the system which disproportionately benefits the wealthy, etc.? — Erik

It doesn't disproportionately benefit the wealthy, if by that you just mean that the wealthy own more of the newly created wealth than the others.

without the latter group the former would not have been able to achieve what they have — Erik

This is nosense. Yes, without other people on Earth, the entrepreneur would have no one to help. But that's not saying much. The entrepreneur isn't aided one iota in actually helping those people by their mere existence. It's his ingenuity and effort that is of help. The entrepreneur identifies and solves society's problems.

Ayn Randian justification of boundless greed — Erik

It's not boundless greed. To make money you need to solve problems that others have. You're not just going to give me your money, but on the other hand, if, say, I help you make $10,000, you don't mind giving me $1000. Or if I help you get your health back, etc.

I'd imagine that being ridiculously rich and generous aren't mutually exclusive, and that one can be financially successful while also feeling a sense of gratitude and indebtedness to the larger community to which one belongs. — Erik

The entrepreneur doesn't need to feel gratitude, he is already helping his society by his very existence - providing needed services and products to millions of customers.

I'd question whether there's strong link to be found between personal happiness/well-being and a thriving economy — Erik

It obviously depends on the individual.

as disgusting as it is — StreetlightX

Why is it disgusting? :s Again, if they create that wealth, who should own it? The people who keep a finger up their nose expecting money to fall from the sky in their lap? :s

It's that that wealth is used to entrench the means of wealth creation in that bracket while keeping that means out of the hands of the 99%. — StreetlightX

Could you provide examples of what you mean? I don't find this to be the case. Most billionaires, for example, are self-made, and they don't come from rich families. Nobody stops you from providing a useful product or service, so how are the means of wealth creation kept away from middle-class people like us? More like most of us are too lazy to be interested in doing something useful at a large scale, including dealing with all the complexities that involves. But how are the mechanisms of wealth creation kept away from us? :s

Most billionaires, for example, are self-made, and they don't come from rich families. — Agustino

Fact check:

There Are More Self-Made Billionaires In The Forbes 400 Than Ever Before.

The evolution of absolute self-made fortunes (10s) and inherited, but not growing (1s) in the Forbes 400 from 1984 to 2014:

In 2004, we had 59% of the Forbes 400 having made their own fortune, as opposed to 41% who inherited it.

...

Thus, the most encouraging results come from this year’s Forbes 400. For the first time in our data set, we see the number of self-made billionaires who rose from nothing, and overcame various tough obstacles, outpacing those that just sat on their fortunes. A total of 34 billionaires, or 8.5%, scored as 10s, or more than three times as many as in 1984. The number of 100% inherited fortunes as a percentage of the total fell to 7%, with 28 billionaires in the 1 category, compared to 99 back in 1984.

I rate your claim as true. (Y)

It's not surprising, technology is always disruptive of old-money.

Nobody stops you from providing a useful product or service, so how are the means of wealth creation kept away from middle-class people like us? More like most of us are too lazy to be interested in doing something useful at a large scale, including dealing with all the complexities that involves. But how are the mechanisms of wealth creation kept away from us? — Agustino

Despite what your teachers might have told you in school, it isn't just about effort. 9 out of 10 start-ups fail. The idea that just about anyone (or most people) can succeed if they try hard enough is ridiculous. Skills, knowledge, innovation, a lack of competition, starting resources, and even luck all play a major role. A single mother working two jobs is never going to get out of that situation without help, despite the massive amount of effort she's already putting into living and supporting her family.

It's in the growing precarity of the labour force, the dwindling growth of workers incomes, the systematic dismantling of labour laws, the offshoring of manufacturing, the watering down of social support, the wild growth of monopolies across all sectors along with all the antitrust issues that entails, the explosion of incarceration rates of the poor and the ethnic, the unparalleled growth of household debt (in the West at least), the wildly differential means of access to education, insurance, healthcare, and social networks, the massive divestment of public justice, the ongoing war against progressive tax mechanisms, the ongoing privitaization or dereliction of public resources (driving up costs for the poor), the use of austerity measures to devastate and keep down entire national economies, the use of IP to suppress newly emerging market-players, the ghettoization of poor urban spaces - and plenty more.

If you can't see it you're either blind or analytically challenged.

In the meantime, you can educate yourself.

And the many tax avoidance schemes that the rich are able to take advantage of.

It doesn't disproportionately benefit the wealthy, if by that you just mean that the wealthy own more of the newly created wealth than the others. — Agustino

Sure it can, especially if the wealthy infiltrate the political system and affect policy. Embarking on expensive and adventurous wars under the guise of spreading democracy; maintaining a massive military which not only protects but also expands their assets and interests; negotiating free trade agreements which hurt average folk but benefit the already rich; etc.

This is nosense. Yes, without other people on Earth, the entrepreneur would have no one to help. But that's not saying much. The entrepreneur isn't aided one iota in actually helping those people by their mere existence. It's his ingenuity and effort that is of help. The entrepreneur identifies and solves society's problems. — Agustino

This seems one-sided since the entrepreneur also creates certain problems - social, environmental, etc. Automation, for example, may help entrepreneurs cut labor costs and become more efficient but it also hurts certain groups of people that have lost their livelihoods as a result of advanced technology. This is the ambiguous nature of what Joseph Schumpeter referred to as the "process of creative destruction" as I understand it.

You know way more about this topic than I do, obviously, but I'm almost certain that it's not nearly as simple as you're portraying it. There are winners and losers here, even when judged strictly according to economic considerations; if we factor in other long-term criteria then it would seem to become an even more complex topic.

I'd also maintain that a large work force and robust consumer base would seem absolutely necessary for peddling the products and services that the visionary entrepreneur you're so in thrall to creates. Let's not forget the tremendous amount of money that goes into creating needs through advertising, often through extremely sophisticated and manipulative psychological means.

It's not boundless greed. To make money you need to solve problems that others have. You're not just going to give me your money, but on the other hand, if, say, I help you make $10,000, you don't mind giving me $1000. Or if I help you get your health back, etc. — Agustino

That's great, sincerely, but what about creating a smart phone or a highly addictive website (e.g. Facebook, porn) or some other thing which may impact your life, your relationships, your health adversely, in such a way that you become more isolated form others, less physically active, more prone to feelings of depression and suicide, etc. The jury is apparently still out on these things, yet you seem to be assuming they only lead to positive and beneficial results.

So again, it's not just a simple matter of 'solving problems' - it could be about exploiting weaknesses, catering to the the basest of human desires, etc. I'd argue, yet again, that you're employing an overly simplistic perspective on the topic which remains blind - and MUST remain blind if the rigid position is to be maintained - to the many potentially destructive consequences of entrepreneurship and economic development without regard for any other (economic and non-economic alike) considerations.

To summarize, it seems like you're isolating economic activity from the larger historical, social, environmental, and cultural (just to name a few) context in which it takes place. That tactic seems extremely suspect on a number of levels: morally, intellectually, etc.

Despite what your teachers might have told you in school, it isn't just about effort. 9 out of 10 start-ups fail. The idea that just about anyone (or most people) can succeed if they just try hard enough is ridiculous. — Michael

Yes, but most people can succeed if they know what to do. Now knowing what to do isn't easy. Most people have completely wrong notions about business, so I'm not surprised when I hear most businesses fail.

Most people don't understand the critical importance of marketing and getting sales, above all else. Without capital, you cannot finance your operation and you will fail. Capital can make up for mistakes, lacking the right people, etc.

So most people develop products that no one buys (wrong approach), they start a product-based / manufacturing business with not enough capital, etc.

These are all mistakes. Get sales first - make sure that there's a market that you can reach and tap in before you invest.

blind or analytically challenged. — StreetlightX

Trust me, analytically challenged or blind is definitely not what I am. That should be measured by practical results you get not the postmodernist books you read. Anyone can read books and spew out a bunch of theories. But not everyone can get practical results.

It's in the growing precarity of the labour force, the dwindling growth of workers incomes, the systematic dismantling of labour laws, the offshoring of manufacturing, the watering down of social support, the wild growth of monopolies across all sectors along with all the antitrust issues that entails, the explosion of incarceration rates of the poor and the ethnic, the unparalleled growth of household debt (in the West at least), the wildly differential means of access to education, insurance, and social networks, the ongoing war against progressive tax mechanisms, the ongoing privitaization or dereliction of public resources (driving up costs for the poor), the use of austerity measures to devastate and keep down entire national economies, the use of IP to suppress newly emerging market-players - and plenty more. — StreetlightX

All these are the result of poor individual choices if you ask me. For example, people are taking on debt to finance housing purchase etc. because they don't understand how it works. Even in Eastern Europe a lot of young people are accumulating a lot of debt to finance housing purchases - why? Because they're happy they get their own house immediately, but do not understand how variable interest rates function - they don't see how inflation will go up, and how the amount they'll end up paying for the house is a LOT more than what the bank initially presents them. But if they lived with parents for say 10 years until they could afford a house by saving money, they would escape from having to use bank debt. Or they could buy a cheaper house outside the main cities. Nothing that cannot be fixed with smart individual decisions.

ongoing war against progressive tax mechanisms — StreetlightX

That's a good thing.

All these are the result of poor individual choices if you ask me — Agustino

Analytically challenged it is.

Sure it can, especially if the wealthy infiltrate the political system and affect policy. — Erik

Yes, that's the only thing I would agree on. The government shouldn't serve the interests of entrenched corporations through corruption or laws the prevent competition.

Automation, for example, may help entrepreneurs cut labor costs and become more efficient but it also hurts certain groups of people that have lost their livelihoods as a result of advanced technology. — Erik

Look, that's only because people have the wrong expectations. You are only paid if you are useful, and that holds as much for the entrepreneur as for everyone else. If you keep doing the same job your entire life, without on the side always studying and expanding your skills, you may indeed wake up one day out of work and in a terrible situation, lacking other skills, and not having a job either. That's true. And there are many people I've met who are precisely in this condition. But all this could have been avoided had they dedicated themselves to self-improvement during many many previous years.

There are winners and losers here, even when judged strictly according to economic considerations, and if we factor in other long-term criteria then it would seem to become an even more complex topic. — Erik

There are indeed winners and losers, but you lose because you don't play your cards right. You don't lose because of a systematic issue.

I'd also maintain that a large work force and consumer would seem necessary for peddling the products and services that the visionary entrepreneur was able to create. Let's not forget the tremendous amount of money that goes into creating needs through advertising, often through extremely sophisticated and manipulative psychological means. — Erik

Marketing isn't about that though. That's another common misconception. Marketing is about communicating, honestly, to prospects what problems they have, and what products can solve their problems. Raising awareness about pain-points is just as important as showing what the solution for them is. If you don't know you have a problem you won't buy the product that could solve it.

But of course there is also unethical marketing (deceptive, bait & switch, etc.), but by and large most people are more honest than we would expect them to be in business according to our popular culture.

That's great, sincerely, but what about creating a smart phone or a highly addictive website (e.g. Facebook, porn) or some other thing which may impact on your life and health adversely, in such a way that you become more isolated form others, less physically active, more prone to feelings of depression and suicide, etc. — Erik

Does anyone force you to watch porn though? No, that's your decision. But obviously developing porn is also unethical - but there is a demand for it. I wouldn't personally ever get involved in unethical businesses, and wouldn't mind, for that matter, if we were to ban such businesses.

But things like Facebook, even if they are addictive, are still more beneficial than otherwise for most people, since they can keep in contact with others more easily.

Analytically challenged it is. — StreetlightX

Analytically challenged who can probably solve a practical problem 4 times as fast and better than you can :-} Of course, it's easy to show off and insult others when there's no real standard, and real interaction with reality, to compare our results with.

Your notion of fairness seems to assume that individuals make independent and voluntary choices that are independent of their environment, peers and upbringing. If that thesis is false, such that anyone given the same resources and opportunities would make similar incomes then how would you define what is a "fair" distribution?

And even if such a distribution is "fair" according to some moral definition of fairness pertaining to the individual, does that necessarily imply that wealth shouldn't be re-distributed? After all, what is "fair" for individuals might not be "fair" or beneficial for the collective, or vice versa.

There are two factors that you can interpret out of that graph, or other income distribution graphs, one is that a lot of people own very little of the money and a few people own quite a lot of the money. This is a qualitative conclusion, and questions addressing it should take the form of questions about inequality.

There's also a quantitative question, what is wrong with this magnitude of inequality specifically, and is there a minimal magnitude of inequality (or a similar quantity) which makes the problems of inequality go away? Alternatively, do injustices and unfairness scale with the magnitude of the inequality; and if so, how?

The first one is a lot easier to address. It's quite well understood that inequality within a community correlates very strongly with all crime rates (except for arson, weirdly). Poverty and inequality have a mediated relationship, but in the US they correlate quite strongly over communities. There's also strong correlations with poverty/inequality and ethnic diversity and proportion of non-whites in a community. I studied the data for this a few years ago.

I aggregated census data in the US with crime data and income data, extracted communities which are measured in each data set, then dida principal component analysis of crime, make a coordinate system with the first 3 principal components (of which the first and the second are the most interesting). Plotting demographic variables and measures of inequality/poverty over the sphere gives you a colinear relationship between poverty, inequality, ethnic diversity and non-white population proportion. Which is to say that in terms of variation in crime rates, (inequality)-(poverty)-(ethnic diversity)-(non-white proportion) are a single construct. Or more prosaically 'race and class are two sides of the same coin'.*

This isn't to say that such an analysis lets you draw causal conclusions from the demographics, in fact it impedes treating inequality, poverty, ethnic diversity and non-white proportion as separate quantities for causal analysis. Which isn't to say it's not possible, it's to say that their alignment gives strong evidence of pairwise mediation, or in another word, confounding, when trying to draw causal conclusions.

Some analysts also throw economic growth into the mix as an inflation factor of inequality. Prosaically, money makes more money. It's interesting to ask where the money's made - what kind of human activity generates the biggest changes in ownership of monetary value?

This is hands down the stock exchange or financial sector. Worldwide, in total about 60 trillion Euros are traded in stock exchanges per year. This is more than the combined monetary value of all goods and services bought in a year worldwide. See here for World Bank data on the subject. Wealthy countries have a bad habit of trading more monetary value in stocks and financial assets than their entire yearly GDP.

It's interesting at this point to note that the idea 'those who demonstrate consistent skill and utility to their communities are reward financially', that @Agustino said, is pretty much bunk considered under this light. The majority of US stock traders are worse than chance at their job, but are disproportionately rewarded to the tune of a wage equal to about twice the median income in the US.

Who actually has the money to invest in stocks, to play the game that generates most wealth? You need about 3000 dollars to purchase an index fund. This breakdown of the 'average cost of living per year', they have enough to minimally purchase index funds or speculate on the stock market. But what about people receiving the minimum wage of 7.25 dollars per hour? They can't even afford the average yearly expenditure on food+housing in that breakdown (approx 16k dollars per year before tax). So they're locked out of the mechanisms by which the economy grows, so will receive less and less of a share. Conversely, those who get to play the game will get more and more of the share. The poor also can't pay for lobbying, so their political impact is diminished as well.

So what's so bad about income inequality in general? It correlates strongly with racial inequality, inequality of opportunity, it locks out the poorest from growth, it promotes crime.

What about the quantitative question at the start of the post? How do greater magnitudes of inequality impact a nation? Well. inequality has a strong link with crime rates, more inequality more crime. Also, growth magnifies unequal distributions of monetary value to the extent that the the monetary value is unequally distributed. So if we have a monotonic relationship between X and a set P(X), increasing X increases P(X) - so growth is likely to increase the inequality in income, which through its correlates is likely to increase poverty, racial inequality, crime and decrease social mobility and political agency of the poor. Since these relationships are linear (see collinearity earlier, linear is a subspecies of monotonic), the more unequal things get, the worse the expected impact on poverty, inequality, crime, social mobility and political agency.

*the angle between the first principal component and all those vectors was between 5 and 15 degrees, perfect correlation is 0 degrees, no correlation is 90. The vectors were pointing along the first principal component, this means that they all contribute/explain the major components of variation in crime over the US.

Awesome.

I think it's inappropriate to refer to the extraordinarily wealthy as deserving or admirable in any respect because they have far more than they could possibly need to live comfortably, or to claim that it's fair that this is the case, or that it would somehow be unfair if this were not the case.

I don't see how it can reasonably be maintained that someone appropriately has far more resources than he/she can possibly require where resources are limited. This would be to honor rampant self-indulgence. Are gluttons and hoarders admirable because they consume and keep far more than they need to be sated or that they will use? I would say no, even if they "earned" what they so selfishly and needlessly eat and acquire.

Who created wealth for the past 200 years? Only a handful of industrious people. — Agustino

No, that handful of people scammed millions of people wasting their life working for them to gain even minimal upgrade in their standard of living.

For now, I will tackle only this part.

what kind of human activity generates the biggest changes in ownership of monetary value? — fdrake

Monetary value in and of itself is irrelevant. Production and problem-solving are relevant.

This is hands down the stock exchange or financial sector. — fdrake

The stock exchange and the financial sector are very different. The financial sector is much much larger. But I take it you don't know much about this... clearly.

Worldwide, in total about 60 trillion Euros are traded in stock exchanges per year. This is more than the combined monetary value of all goods and services bought in a year worldwide. See here for World Bank data on the subject. — fdrake

Yeah, actually roughly 66 trillion euros - not that it means anything. You actually don't understand matters very well if you think stock trades are the figure you should quote. You should quote forex markets. Every single day approximately $5 trillion USD exchange hands on the forex market - meaning approximately $1800 trillion per annum.



And a large share of these transactions are required by businesses since international trade and international selling always involves buying and selling of currency.

It's interesting at this point to note that the idea 'those who demonstrate consistent skill and utility to their communities are reward financially', that Agustino said, is pretty much bunk considered under this light. — fdrake

>:O No, you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you think most of today's fortunes were created by trading stocks or financial speculation, then you're wrong. Most of the people who get rich do so through starting and running a business, which produces something useful for society that other people need or want.

Financial speculation and trading stocks, etc. is only a way for rich people to maintain their wealth and avoid having inflation eat it up - once they are already rich. Having said that, I am actually opposed to financial speculation since it doesn't produce anything useful. So I wouldn't mind taxing PROFITS (definitely at least short-term profits) from that at 90%.

The majority of US stock traders are worse than chance at their job, but are disproportionately rewarded to the tune of a wage equal to about twice the median income in the US. — fdrake

Sure, so what? They're not where the real money is.

Who actually has the money to invest in stocks, to play the game that generates most wealth? — fdrake

>:O >:O investment in stocks is the game that generates the most wealth? >:O

You seem to confuse the passivity of growing a sum of money through financial investments with the ability to generate wealth. Financial speculation generates no wealth, since it produces nothing. Wealth is generated when products or services are sold. People who are already rich use financial investments not because they're so great at producing wealth, but because they're passive - they take relatively little effort when compared to, say, starting a business.

You seem to think that those who are the most successful at accumulating enormous wealth are motivated, not by accumulating an ever greater fortune for themselves, but by benign, or even beneficent, desires, such as the wish to solve problems and help people. So, if there were a cap on personal wealth accumulation, and anything earned above that had to, by law, go back into the public purse, do you think the billionaires would remain motivated?

If those who accumulate great wealth are motivated mostly just by the desire to create great wealth (and the power that comes with that) for themselves, do you think that such a situation is morally acceptable and should be tolerated, or even encouraged?

You seem to think that those who are the most successful at accumulating enormous wealth are motivated, not by accumulating an ever greater fortune for themselves, but by benign, or even beneficent, desires, such as the wish to solve problems and help people. — Janus

Right, but that's how money is accumulated in the first place, by solving problems for society or providing needed products or services. You wouldn't pay me unless I provide you with something useful.

So, if there were a cap on personal wealth accumulation, and anything earned above that had to, by law, go back into the public purse, do you think the billionaires would remain motivated? — Janus

Sure, I don't think that would be a problem so long as the respective billionaire gets to decide how that additional money is to be invested for the public's benefit. But, on the other hand, if invested for the public benefit really means that the billionaire gives over control to some corrupt or incapable government bureaucrat to decide how to invest the money on his behalf, I think that's a problem.

If those who accumulate great wealth are motivated mostly just by the desire to create great wealth (and the power that comes with that) for themselves, do you think that such a situation is morally acceptable and should be tolerated, or even encouraged? — Janus

I think there comes a point though when more money doesn't make a difference in terms of personal power. If you have $100 million, you're pretty much as powerful as someone who has $20 billion for the most part. There's not much you can do in terms of personal power with more money. So I don't think personal power can be a source of motivation beyond that level.

If those who accumulate great wealth are motivated mostly just by the desire to create great wealth (and the power that comes with that) for themselves, do you think that such a situation is morally acceptable and should be tolerated, or even encouraged? — Janus

I think it depends on whether this has a net benefit for society or not, and whether the solution to people motivated in such a way produces a better result or not.

Capitalism operates under the assumption that self-interested economic behavior results in net benefits for society. Of course there has to be some rules in place for this to work, and maybe capping the absolute wealth one can accumulate should be one of those. But then again, you might be disincentivizing the would be Steve Jobs or Elon Musk's of the world. So it's not entirely obvious what we should do.

I agree though when it comes to power that we need to limit any individual's influence. But a large part of that is what modern democracies are set up to do. They may need to be tweaked to take into account undo monetary influences.

Didn't know that about the Forex market, nice. How does it change things?

>:O No, you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you think most of today's fortunes were created by trading stocks or financial speculation, then you're wrong. Most of the people who get rich do so through starting and running a business, which produces something useful for society that other people need or want.

I don't think I implied much about how people get rich. What I care about is what makes money flow around, apparently this is the Forex Market then the Credit market. This paragraph is dataless assertion anyway. Also due to the failure rates previously mentioned in the thread it's necessary but not sufficient for wealth generation.

Financial speculation and trading stocks, etc. is only a way for rich people to maintain their wealth and avoid having inflation eat it up - once they are already rich. Having said that, I am actually opposed to financial speculation since it doesn't produce anything useful. So I wouldn't mind taxing PROFITS (definitely at least short-term profits) from that at 90%.

First sentence is the important thing. Companies can also sell their shares to generate wealth, the credit market is implicated in business start ups too (most of which fail, as was already pointed out).

Sure, so what? They're not where the real money is.

Where is the real money? What does 'real money' mean?

You seem to confuse the passivity of growing a sum of money through financial investments with the ability to generate wealth. Financial speculation generates no wealth, since it produces nothing. Wealth is generated when products or services are sold. People who are already rich use financial investments not because they're so great at producing wealth, but because they're passive - they take relatively little effort when compared to, say, starting a business.

Financial speculation generates no wealth, but the credit market is the second biggest, and the first biggest contains currency speculation and exchange. What conception of wealth are you working with?

You've provided mostly dataless counterpoints with no arguments. Most of the argumentative force of your post consists in 'fdrake didn't know the proportional size of the forex market to the credit market' then mockery. Bad form.

There's also a category error in your individualistic response. Attempting to analyse something which appears only in the aggregate (income inequality) by reducing it to the decisions of individuals - rather than the aggregate properties of individual decisions doesn't work. Discussing the graph is already on the level of statistical summary.