It was a nice riposte. Altough the concentration on income inequality overall is perplexing to me. Income can be measured and is emotive ( I earn X but my cous

It was a nice riposte. Altough the concentration on income inequality overall is perplexing to me. Income can be measured and is emotive ( I earn X but my cousin earns 10X ), yet I think concentrating on this metric is obscuring some bigger issues. You do touch on them in your counterpoint. Karl Marx in Das Kapital explains the situation post Industrial Revolution and prior to the World Wars. The landlords conspired with the factory owners to keep rents high and wages low so that workers had little ability to move or leave. This lack of freedom in a self determination sense is creeping back into Western economies. Mortgages and rents are so high that workers spend most of their wage paying that. So never mind that middle class income equality is 17% lower than middle class income equality 1980. House prices and rents have climbed more than enough even if 'equality' had persisted. ( Also prices for the very rich have increased too. ) But instead of a landlord class and factory manager class conspiring the prices have risen via market forces and lax monetary policy and the relabeling of debt as 'credit' Another factor is opportunity equality. Meritocricy has greatly reduced since 1980, and is acutely poor now. Entry into elite jobs like CEOs, the Media Class, (cough) VCs and Private Equity firms are chosen from just a few streams. Harvard, Wharton, Ivy League in the States and moneyed private school in Europe. From outside those circles it is a struggle to join. Paul touched on WW2, but I would go further and say both WW1 and WW2 were the genesis of a burst of meritocracy unleashed by mass death in Europe at the same time as vast strides in technology. Getting a good job was easy in 1960 because everyone had died in 1915 - 1945 and there were many new classes of job. These days, people are working and living longer and it is harder to get to the top... your boss didn't die in battle, you'll have to wait.