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Serious comment. Help me understand the problem with economic inequality. If I can afford two cars, a nice house, plenty of food for my family, and all the othe

Serious comment. Help me understand the problem with economic inequality. If I can afford two cars, a nice house, plenty of food for my family, and all the other things we've become comfortably accustomed to in the first world, why should it matter that my boss can afford twice as much, and that her boss can afford 30, 300, or even 30000000 times more than that? Don't take this to mean I am ignorant if the poverty problem in the US, but that's a separate concern. Comparatively, the US has a reasonable safety net (sure, it could be better, but again, separate issue). Given the choice, I'd rather be economically unequal and live in poverty in the US than economically equal and living in poverty in places like Venezuela.

cdancette 9y ago
You're absolutely right. I think inequality is fine as long as it's not hurting the economy (which it is when the inequality is large enough) and thus making things worse for the poorest people. Moreover, someone that possess more resources than some countries in the world has a huge power over other individuals, sometimes more than governments. I think we want to avoid that if possible. Think of the majority of the press being possessed -in France at least, I'm not sure how it is in the US- by a few individuals. Do you like the idea that everything you see on TV or read on the news is decided by a few individuals ? So I'd say poverty is not the unique issue here. Avoiding concentration of too much wealth also avoids concentration of too much power.