> By comparing the variability in house sizes, scientists could compare the degree of inequality in each society and how it related to population size and political complexity.
I suspect the study is interesting but that rather undermines the conclusions as relevant in the modern era. The wealth inequality is because house construction isn't a particularly important store of wealth. It is quite difficult to consume a billion dollars worth of house construction; that is skyscraper or Great Pyramid of Giza territory.
You'd miss most of a contemporary billionaire's wealth if you looked mainly at their housing.
Not to mention, most if the wealth in a primary residence isn't really accessible/utilized. A house bought years ago might appreciate to the point you wouldn't be able to afford it today. But if you sell it, where else are you going to live unless moving to a cheaper area? Then you have people who are house poor vs rich people who live relatively modestly (eg Warren Buffet).
And thats all in the US. Other countries/cultures may have different practices that do not tie wealth to large houses.
> Instead, it seems to be a consequence of political choices and governance structures.
These are all human constructs and the missing variable is greed, so likely inequality is inevitable once the human condition variables are accounted for
In some isolated and probably anomalous societies sure, but greed-fueled expansion and growth is a hallmark of humanity across every single continent and at every stratum of civilizational development stretching back 10,000s of years
I think greed just expands with the capacity to profit from it. It’s not that it didn’t exist in past and cause problems, it’s that our current systems reward it so heavily. I’m sure something as simple as our fiat currency, having most wealth as an intangible digit in a database, is a huge enabler itself. In past, if you acquired wealth you also had to protect it from theft and that was a significant burden itself.
We do still have the concept of people taking to much while people also greatly admire the vampires. It seems pretty obvious a culture could develop all over the spectrum.
Greed isn't the product. Greed is an inherent human characteristic (we'd all like a bigger house, more luxurious holidays, nicer car etc). The genius of Capitalism is that it channels greed to foster innovation, resulting in better and/or cheaper products, raising living standards.
Huh, you only have to play one game of Monopoly to understand how wealth inequality becomes a thing. And even more so if you enter the game after a few rounds have already been played.
There were two versions of the game originally, one with tax and the other without. The trick is to figure out a way of taxing that offsets the random and unfair aspects of the rules of the economy/game. However, I believe even the taxed version of the game wasn't very successful at it.
The trick is not have "wealth" (ie property ownership/rights). Societies that were nomadic with low/no property ownership culture did not have wealth inequality since there wasn't that much "wealth" to have. They had their hierarchies but those were weak, more akin to the kind of hierarchies you have in families ("everyone listens to grandma" kind of hierarchy). Wealth inequality is obviously synthetic (and this study is kind of silly), since you need a governing body to maintain property rights (along with creating what today are the most valuable legal ownership structures, like intellectual property). A corporation, a mortgage, a deed, equity, all the defining elements of wealth, are exclusively legal constructs created/administered by governments. The wealth of every wealthy person you can think of is based on their rights to property, not the property itself (i.e stocks, deeds, trademarks, copyrights etc.). This requires a very elaborate infrastructure to maintain and a culture to support it. Wealth isn't a given and actually is very easily destroyed (when governments are toppled or property rights are taken away--Communist rebellions of the twentieth century are a good example).
It's true that formal wealth systems (like land, stock ownership and trademarks) require an elaborate legal and cultural infrastructure to maintain — but only at scale. The absence of such systems doesn't eliminate wealth inequality, it just changes how it's enforced.
In less formal or collapsed systems, wealth and resources are often controlled by a ruling oligarchy or individuals whose hard power acts as a de facto property right.
For example, many argue that Vladimir Putin is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, despite lacking formal ownership on paper — his political and military power effectively grants him control over immense resources. Wealth inequality ultimately stems from control over resources, whether legitimized by law or enforced through power.
Power people have power because of power is more of a movie trope than the actual mechanics of the world you live in. Wealth is exclusively abstract legal constructs in the modern world. You might be surprised to know that even Putin's wealth is tied to legal ownership structures, (regardless if they're maintained by bogus shell companies, he has effective rights to the property). Whatever niche counter-example comes after doesn't influence how global inequality is administered or experienced by the majority of people.
Wealth inequality is only as inevitable as the Pareto Principle. Does anyone know of examples where that has been successfully resisted for long? I imagine that it takes a great deal of sustained effort and invasive control.
> Wealth inequality is only as inevitable as the Pareto Principle.
In that case it’s not inevitable at all. The Pareto Principle is an observation, not an immutable law of the universe. Some things have an 80/20 split, others have different percentages, others still do not fit the principle.
I think that question betrays an assumption that somehow insane wealth accumulation is "natural" and anything else is not. Modern capitalism with all its rules and (often brutal) enforcement requires no less "effort and invasive control" that alternatives, it's just that the wealthy are writing the rules in their favor.
Eh? Don’t you think you’re mindlessly citing the Pareto Principle here as if it’s by itself a natural law that is necessary? I mean, I don’t even have to argue in favor of perfect wealth distribution—it’s simply possible to partition any resource along the lines of 60-40 or 40/40/20, it’s just a matter of initiative.
And yes, in the case of wealth distribution, public policy is a matter of initiative. That in itself a long discussion because there are many factors involved in policymaking and in what makes policies politically viable, but already, those are more interesting and thoughtful questions than just chalking it all up to “pArEtO pRiNcIpLe”.
1. reset the accumulation every 50 years or more often. The reset can be a war, a dictatorship, revolution, whatever. It's how Eastern Europe has low wealth inequality despite no systemic measures. It's not a stable solution (if you leave them alone they will accumulate capital and become oligarchy unless other measures are implemented). That's why EU Eastern Europe is different from non-EU Eastern Europe by the way - EU is a huge regulatory force preventing oligarchies from arising.
2. taxation + welfare system that redistributes enough wealth to prevent runaway feedback loops. See socialdemocratic Europe.
3. other regulations preventing non-monetary runaway loops (lobbying laws, antimonopoly rules, electoral system preventing influence from money into politics, trade unions, etc.)
4. economy focused on activities that are less suitable for wealth accumulation. This is not a binary switch, more like a spectrum going from hydrocarbons to service based economy. It's also not a long-term solution, it just speeds up or slows down the accumulation. Even in service-based economy you eventually get oligarchy if you have no regulation (see USA).
IMHO the obvious choice is combination of 2 and 3, the others are shortcuts that happen by accident and you can't depend on them.
BTW "invasive control" is a biased view. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is just as invasive if not more. The only difference is who is invasive towards whom. I prefer elected officials controlling my employers over unelected billionaires controlling their workers. Notice how in US it's common to have to explain to your boss why you want a day off. Like he owns you and it's his good will that you may be allowed to get sick or to rest.
In EU not only is this illegal - even if it would be legal - it would be a huge breach of etiquette for your employer to ask how exactly are you sick.
For someone from Europe it's USA that looks crazy invasive.
Too little inequality means there is nothing to strive for, the ambitious won’t have much reward to work for.
Too much inequality means too few participants in the economic decision making process which leads to instability (i.e. the mad king phenomenon). We are getting closer to the point of instability now, as we reach higher levels of inequality.
How much do you think was the reward that set in motion all the free and open source software that underlie the many OSes, DBs, and dev tools that we still use for free today?
Fair amount? Yes, many started out as someone messing around but paid developers funded by commercial entities followed most of successful open source we use today.
So then we have proof by example that money is not a necessary incentive for people to create, no? And even if the FOSS projects eventually evolved into foundations that solicit some form of funding, they’re still mostly non-profits that are collecting just enough money to sustain their continued operations and aren’t really chasing profits and growth like regular companies do.
Money was exactly what allowed FOSS projects to succeed. Developers with a day job have enough free time to do their own projects for their own reasons.
> Too little inequality means there is nothing to strive for, the ambitious won’t have much reward to work for.
That kind of "ambition" is greed. There are other forms of currency that are arguably much more desired to a healthy society and don't go away in a more equal society: reputation, respect, intellectual authority, etc.
> There are other forms of currency that are arguably much more desired to a healthy society and don't go away in a more equal society: reputation, respect, intellectual authority, etc.
Those doesn't scale though, most jobs doesn't award you any of those. Money is the only real reward low status jobs has gotten ever, take that away and why would anyone wanna work low status jobs?
Ambition, with respect to wealth, can be a double-edged sword. One can imagine being both ambitious and allowing everyone to share in the benefits, and the act of participating in some advance as its own reward. Those that do gain some advantage often are hiding the tremendous work of others, gaining a grotesque share of the fortune for their being in the right place and time. To paraphrase a scene from Life of Brian, it is the (so-called) ambitious, often, who are the problem.
Talking about the putative dangers of "too little inequality" when the amount we have today is so absurdly high seems kind of disingenuous, even if that's not what's intended.
In order for there to be "too little inequality" to the extent that you describe, it would have to be impossible for anyone to, say, earn more than about $100k/yr (based on current median incomes in the US). So far as I know, no one with an iota of credibility has proposed anything remotely like this.
As it stands, any time any level of increase in taxes on the ultra-wealthy is proposed, people come out of the woodwork claiming that a higher tax rate on those making $100m, $500m, $1b/yr would just destroy all interest in striving and doing well, which is so clearly absurd.
...And, unfortunately, we also know that there are a fair number of people for whom reduced inequality would destroy their ambition, because their ambition has nothing to do with being reasonably wealthy themselves or having financial security: the reward, for them, is very explicitly being able to treat other people like they aren't even human. And that's not something society should ever accept, from anyone.
I think that house size is a metric of convenience because it is archeologically simple. But there are modern examples of societies where house size doesn't correlate with wealth and wealth was stored in other kinds of assets, material or immaterial.
E.g. in the communist eastern block, living quarters were quite standardized, and while the very highest levels of society had special arrangements, a professor might have lived in the same quarters as a factory worker. The differences were in the "job extras" such as personal drivers and cars, travel permits, spots on the waiting list for goods and services and social prestige that translated to influence.
Certain early modern European societies, especially protestant ones, also frowned upon overt displays of wealth through bigger and more ostentatious housing. However, that might be detectable archeologically when using build quality as a metric.
Cities like Amsterdam also had very peculiar systems of allotting and taxing building spaces, thereby leading to the well-known equal-sized and narrow houses.
Your examples are confusing wealth with social status. An influencer or politician may have relatively low wealth compared to a lottery winner, but the winner has vastly less impact on society.
The issue with wealth inequality is it feeds on itself where other forms of influence tend to erode over time and need to be constantly maintained. A surprisingly long list of people could literally donate 100+M to every presidential election for the rest of their life with interest making up the difference before the next election.
And the question begging of assuming that equality is a desirable goal. We also need to look at the cost of equality (of house sizes?) -- if it requires authoritarian government, theocracy, slavery, subjugation of other tribes, maybe it's not necessarily a goal unto it self? Those other factors at least need to be considered!
Personally I think related monetary wealth is inevitable, it's built into the system.
Monetarily I'm at the poor end of wealth, but I am content and want for little. This is also why I probably don't get the house size metric used here. My current, humble, abode is big enough for my needs. Given more money I don't see me upgrading.
What solutions will be worth exploring to solve current inequalities if we know it's not inevitable, given our current situation?
I'm not sure who made the argument that inequality is unavoidable. The argument is that it's a strong tendency and a common scenrio without structural provisions.
> I'm not sure who made the argument that inequality is unavoidable.
Rich people who benefit from everyone else thinking this is the natural way of things and thus they are not to blame. The same kind of people who call workers arrogant and say they should be thankful to employers and be put in their place through unemployment.
Ooglr, Gnurgh and Borrr are three cavemen, each of them setting out on their path towards success.
Ooglr gets himself a club, hunts down a few ratty creatures and thinks "that'll do for today, it is nice weather and I'd rather be oogling the cave girls than chasing those stupid ratty creatures so now that I have enough for tonight I'll stop chasing and start oogling". The next day he chases down a few more ratty creatures, calls it a day once he got himself a few and continued oogling. For some reason those girls did not seem to return his longing gaze, could they not recognise him for the successful hunter-of-ratty-creatures that he was?
Gnurgh sees things differently. He finds himself a good-sized elk shoolder blade and starts digging a pit. When the pit is deep enough he covers it with branches and leaves and waits until his intended target - an aurochs - stumbles into the pit. You see, he scouted out aurochs trails until he found a spot where the ground looked good for digging a pit while the beasts could not avoid the spot where he intended to dig his pit. He also prepared a number of spears to dispatch whatever happened to stumble into his pit as well as some flint knives to cut his prey up into slivers. Did I mention the drying racks he made to dry the meat? Well, now I did. Knowing that meat spoils quite fast he started cutting up the oversized cow and worked through the night and the next night upon which he had himself a supply of meat enough to feed a family through the winter (it was a big aurochs). He had placed one of his drying racks next to his fire pit and found out the meat from that rack was more tasty than that from the racks further away from the fire and made a mental note to repeat that the next time with more racks. All the time Gnurgh was hard at work he was watched by some comely cave girls and before long he did have a family to feed through the winter.
Borrr did not like chasing things with clubs. He did not like digging pits either. He half-heartedly tried to catch himself a fish in the stream but the water was cold and the fish slippery so it got away and was probably laughing at him somewhere. Besides, why would he bother? He could just go to one of Gnurgh's drying racks and pilfer some meat? Then, once sated he'd lie in wait for one of those girls.
In the situation I described there was no effort by anyone to make any of the alternative approaches look better or worse. Did you ever notice that in any field you might care to look at a small percentage of the people seem to end up outperforming the rest? In the arts, in sports (i.e. in ritualised warfare because that's what sports come down to), in the sciences, anywhere. One of the names this phenomenon is known under is the Pareto distribution (look it up or look at [1] for it application to wealth distribution).
Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society.
Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ.
I don't think many people have a problem with the kind of income inequality you describe. Natural inequality does not produce the level of inequality we are seeing today. This is the result of Gnurgh and his friends setting up rules that enable them to take a rat from Oogrl each day, lock Borrr in a cave and let their children inherit their position.
Yes, that is what I point out. Inequality is a fact of life and the natural level of inequality is what drives people to outdo themselves so as to become 'more equal than others' but inequality does not automatically equate to resource concentration in the hands of a few while the rest starve. The cited study does not much more than indicate that government structure has a deciding effect on wealth distribution. It does not in any way indicate that forced redistribution - Borrr and friends taking Gnurgh's beef jerky and half of Oogrl's rats - or elite rule - Gnurgh employing Oogrl to force Borrr to slave in the mines while Gnurgh takes all the profits - is better or worse, just that societies can be formed in both those ways as well as in ways which more resemble what is probably the best way: Oogrl can hunt his rats, Gnurgh can make his jerky but Borrr is kept from stealing and raping cave girls. If Oogrl wants some jerky he can either try to set up a business in roasted rats so that Gnurgh, tired of beef for breakfast/lunch/dinner can swap some or try to make some for himself.
The alternative chosen by Borrr is worse. The ones chosen by Ooglr and Gnurgh are examples of two types of work-leisure balances, neither of which are 'better' or 'worse'. Sometimes you don't need lengthy discussions or focus groups or studies to decide a given alternative - in this case stealing and raping - is worse.
The article which started this discussion is rather pointless, all it shows is that governments can influence wealth distribution. This was clear from the get-go, no study needed. The position taken - that inequality is not inevitable - is also meaningless since it does not provide any idea on whether the alternative to inequality is beneficial over 'natural' inequality. If you know the song 'The Trees' by the Canadian band Rush you might understand what I mean, if not I'll provide an excerpt from the lyrics which shows an example of a form of equality which is worse for all involved except those enforcing the equality:
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
“The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light”
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
Who wins? Those wielding the hatchet, axe and saw. Who loses? The trees, i.e. the constituents.
The problem with these "house size studies" is that they ignore the nomadic people who lived in the surrounding areas and were (by definition), not housed.
How many nomadics were there, and how much wealth did they have?
This question would probably impact the conclusion that there was less wealth inequality back then.
All those societies studied were poorer than even the least developed nations today. We know it's possible to have wealth equality with poverty; Mao-era China showed this. The solution is simple: make it hard to accumulate wealth, so nobody has much wealth. The question is whether it's possible to have a wealthy society with no wealth equality, and empirically there's zero evidence this is possible.
All we have to do to have wealth equality is to overcome pride, greed, envy, and sloth.
The median wealth may be much lower as a result (since a lot of the things that have made us wealthy as the species are driven by pride, greed, and envy) but we may be happier as a people...
NOT to create an economically equal nation. Just a nation with as much economic inequality as the 60's, or even the 90's. A type of society in living memory, which is today beyond the imagination of policymakers.
Yeah as mentioned in the article, if governed strong enough there will be less wealth inequality.
Problem being that in the modern day governing power and wealth are pretty much 1:1, and wealthy people don’t have any other principles than wealth, they don’t have morals or religious beliefs that go above wealth for them. So they won’t want to make everyone more financially equal.
You've been downvoted, just like every other comment that says our current level of wealth inequality isn't inevitable. I wonder why this would happen on a venture capitalist's private discussion forum.
I suspect the study is interesting but that rather undermines the conclusions as relevant in the modern era. The wealth inequality is because house construction isn't a particularly important store of wealth. It is quite difficult to consume a billion dollars worth of house construction; that is skyscraper or Great Pyramid of Giza territory.
You'd miss most of a contemporary billionaire's wealth if you looked mainly at their housing.
And thats all in the US. Other countries/cultures may have different practices that do not tie wealth to large houses.
These are all human constructs and the missing variable is greed, so likely inequality is inevitable once the human condition variables are accounted for
Among native peoples, sharing seems to be the default.
This is not by coincidence!
Greed applies to more than just 'wealth'. Honour, fame/glory, and power are all things people that people strive for and are envious about:
* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm
Even collectivist communities have a finite supply, or a hierarchy, of those things. Le Guin explored this in The Dispossessed:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse, and right now you're part of the problem.
All alternatives have been worse, you need really strong evidence if you want to make people believe what you got is better.
In less formal or collapsed systems, wealth and resources are often controlled by a ruling oligarchy or individuals whose hard power acts as a de facto property right.
For example, many argue that Vladimir Putin is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, despite lacking formal ownership on paper — his political and military power effectively grants him control over immense resources. Wealth inequality ultimately stems from control over resources, whether legitimized by law or enforced through power.
In that case it’s not inevitable at all. The Pareto Principle is an observation, not an immutable law of the universe. Some things have an 80/20 split, others have different percentages, others still do not fit the principle.
And yes, in the case of wealth distribution, public policy is a matter of initiative. That in itself a long discussion because there are many factors involved in policymaking and in what makes policies politically viable, but already, those are more interesting and thoughtful questions than just chalking it all up to “pArEtO pRiNcIpLe”.
1. reset the accumulation every 50 years or more often. The reset can be a war, a dictatorship, revolution, whatever. It's how Eastern Europe has low wealth inequality despite no systemic measures. It's not a stable solution (if you leave them alone they will accumulate capital and become oligarchy unless other measures are implemented). That's why EU Eastern Europe is different from non-EU Eastern Europe by the way - EU is a huge regulatory force preventing oligarchies from arising.
2. taxation + welfare system that redistributes enough wealth to prevent runaway feedback loops. See socialdemocratic Europe.
3. other regulations preventing non-monetary runaway loops (lobbying laws, antimonopoly rules, electoral system preventing influence from money into politics, trade unions, etc.)
4. economy focused on activities that are less suitable for wealth accumulation. This is not a binary switch, more like a spectrum going from hydrocarbons to service based economy. It's also not a long-term solution, it just speeds up or slows down the accumulation. Even in service-based economy you eventually get oligarchy if you have no regulation (see USA).
IMHO the obvious choice is combination of 2 and 3, the others are shortcuts that happen by accident and you can't depend on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
BTW "invasive control" is a biased view. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is just as invasive if not more. The only difference is who is invasive towards whom. I prefer elected officials controlling my employers over unelected billionaires controlling their workers. Notice how in US it's common to have to explain to your boss why you want a day off. Like he owns you and it's his good will that you may be allowed to get sick or to rest.
In EU not only is this illegal - even if it would be legal - it would be a huge breach of etiquette for your employer to ask how exactly are you sick.
For someone from Europe it's USA that looks crazy invasive.
Too much inequality means too few participants in the economic decision making process which leads to instability (i.e. the mad king phenomenon). We are getting closer to the point of instability now, as we reach higher levels of inequality.
That kind of "ambition" is greed. There are other forms of currency that are arguably much more desired to a healthy society and don't go away in a more equal society: reputation, respect, intellectual authority, etc.
Those doesn't scale though, most jobs doesn't award you any of those. Money is the only real reward low status jobs has gotten ever, take that away and why would anyone wanna work low status jobs?
That only makes sense if you think that people are only ever motivated by money.
In order for there to be "too little inequality" to the extent that you describe, it would have to be impossible for anyone to, say, earn more than about $100k/yr (based on current median incomes in the US). So far as I know, no one with an iota of credibility has proposed anything remotely like this.
As it stands, any time any level of increase in taxes on the ultra-wealthy is proposed, people come out of the woodwork claiming that a higher tax rate on those making $100m, $500m, $1b/yr would just destroy all interest in striving and doing well, which is so clearly absurd.
...And, unfortunately, we also know that there are a fair number of people for whom reduced inequality would destroy their ambition, because their ambition has nothing to do with being reasonably wealthy themselves or having financial security: the reward, for them, is very explicitly being able to treat other people like they aren't even human. And that's not something society should ever accept, from anyone.
E.g. in the communist eastern block, living quarters were quite standardized, and while the very highest levels of society had special arrangements, a professor might have lived in the same quarters as a factory worker. The differences were in the "job extras" such as personal drivers and cars, travel permits, spots on the waiting list for goods and services and social prestige that translated to influence.
Certain early modern European societies, especially protestant ones, also frowned upon overt displays of wealth through bigger and more ostentatious housing. However, that might be detectable archeologically when using build quality as a metric.
Cities like Amsterdam also had very peculiar systems of allotting and taxing building spaces, thereby leading to the well-known equal-sized and narrow houses.
The issue with wealth inequality is it feeds on itself where other forms of influence tend to erode over time and need to be constantly maintained. A surprisingly long list of people could literally donate 100+M to every presidential election for the rest of their life with interest making up the difference before the next election.
When was that ever controversial?
The nonstrawman version of the inevitability of wealth inequality is that governance structures which make everyone equal do not succeed.
The governance structures that make possible wealth inequality are themselves inevitable.
And the question begging of assuming that equality is a desirable goal. We also need to look at the cost of equality (of house sizes?) -- if it requires authoritarian government, theocracy, slavery, subjugation of other tribes, maybe it's not necessarily a goal unto it self? Those other factors at least need to be considered!
Truly garbage science writing.
Also, house size? What a weird metric.
If it turned out that wealth inequality was unavoidable, it would change the nature of the solutions worth exploring.
Monetarily I'm at the poor end of wealth, but I am content and want for little. This is also why I probably don't get the house size metric used here. My current, humble, abode is big enough for my needs. Given more money I don't see me upgrading.
What solutions will be worth exploring to solve current inequalities if we know it's not inevitable, given our current situation?
Rich people who benefit from everyone else thinking this is the natural way of things and thus they are not to blame. The same kind of people who call workers arrogant and say they should be thankful to employers and be put in their place through unemployment.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/the-viral-ceo-shows-the-tru...
Ooglr gets himself a club, hunts down a few ratty creatures and thinks "that'll do for today, it is nice weather and I'd rather be oogling the cave girls than chasing those stupid ratty creatures so now that I have enough for tonight I'll stop chasing and start oogling". The next day he chases down a few more ratty creatures, calls it a day once he got himself a few and continued oogling. For some reason those girls did not seem to return his longing gaze, could they not recognise him for the successful hunter-of-ratty-creatures that he was?
Gnurgh sees things differently. He finds himself a good-sized elk shoolder blade and starts digging a pit. When the pit is deep enough he covers it with branches and leaves and waits until his intended target - an aurochs - stumbles into the pit. You see, he scouted out aurochs trails until he found a spot where the ground looked good for digging a pit while the beasts could not avoid the spot where he intended to dig his pit. He also prepared a number of spears to dispatch whatever happened to stumble into his pit as well as some flint knives to cut his prey up into slivers. Did I mention the drying racks he made to dry the meat? Well, now I did. Knowing that meat spoils quite fast he started cutting up the oversized cow and worked through the night and the next night upon which he had himself a supply of meat enough to feed a family through the winter (it was a big aurochs). He had placed one of his drying racks next to his fire pit and found out the meat from that rack was more tasty than that from the racks further away from the fire and made a mental note to repeat that the next time with more racks. All the time Gnurgh was hard at work he was watched by some comely cave girls and before long he did have a family to feed through the winter.
Borrr did not like chasing things with clubs. He did not like digging pits either. He half-heartedly tried to catch himself a fish in the stream but the water was cold and the fish slippery so it got away and was probably laughing at him somewhere. Besides, why would he bother? He could just go to one of Gnurgh's drying racks and pilfer some meat? Then, once sated he'd lie in wait for one of those girls.
Is wealth inequality really inevitable?
To quote codr7 without violating HN guidelines:
> There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse.
Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society.
Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ.
[1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/L...
The article which started this discussion is rather pointless, all it shows is that governments can influence wealth distribution. This was clear from the get-go, no study needed. The position taken - that inequality is not inevitable - is also meaningless since it does not provide any idea on whether the alternative to inequality is beneficial over 'natural' inequality. If you know the song 'The Trees' by the Canadian band Rush you might understand what I mean, if not I'll provide an excerpt from the lyrics which shows an example of a form of equality which is worse for all involved except those enforcing the equality:
Who wins? Those wielding the hatchet, axe and saw. Who loses? The trees, i.e. the constituents.Great song BTW.
How many nomadics were there, and how much wealth did they have?
This question would probably impact the conclusion that there was less wealth inequality back then.
The tribes in the Andaman Islands also have very low wealth inequality, but all they own are bows and arrows and huts.
The median wealth may be much lower as a result (since a lot of the things that have made us wealthy as the species are driven by pride, greed, and envy) but we may be happier as a people...
If we overcame envy nobody would care about wealth inequality.
Problem being that in the modern day governing power and wealth are pretty much 1:1, and wealthy people don’t have any other principles than wealth, they don’t have morals or religious beliefs that go above wealth for them. So they won’t want to make everyone more financially equal.