>This socalled winner-take-most dynamic, or 80/20 rule (in which 20 percent of participants reap 80 percent of the gains) appears to be a structural feature of

>This socalled winner-take-most dynamic, or 80/20 rule (in which 20 percent of participants reap 80 percent of the gains) appears to be a structural feature of network-based activity because well-positioned business players are able to realize most of the productivity gains that materialize as economic “frictions” are radically reduced at an extremely rapid rate. This is displacing middle-class jobs at an accelerated rate, leaving people reeling from the pace of change and government scrambling to solve market disruptions using archaic policy architectures. I would really like some input from someone with familiarity in the field of economics to vet this statement. >In the report, Kim Taipale, Founder and Executive Director of the Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies, said that the paradoxical result of network effects is that “freedom results in inequality. That is, the more freedom there is in a system, the more unequal the outcomes.” This stems in part from the self-reinforcing benefits that accrue to the “super-nodes” of a network, a phenomenon sometimes called “preferential attachment.” Players that function as super-nodes capture a far disproportionate share of rewards relative to their effort, while hard-working smaller players and individuals find it very difficult (for structural reasons) to increase their share of benefits. Because of this dynamic, said Taipale, “The era of bell curve distributions that sup-ported a bulging social middle class is over, and we are headed for the power-law distribution of economic opportunities. Education per se is not going to make up the difference.” Will the middle class in a wealthy economy ever be viable when so few control decisions?