> In order for the economics of having a personal servant to work out, there needs to be a fairly grotesque level of income inequality, driven by high levels of

> In order for the economics of having a personal servant to work out, there needs to be a fairly grotesque level of income inequality, driven by high levels of societal and legal inequality. If the master has 10x the income of their servant, that means they are spending only 10% of their income on the servant. I.e., that's a manageable proportion to spend for the significant time-savings that having a servant represents. The US (and many other countries) have income inequalities that far exceed a factor of 10. Honestly if the divide between the lowest and highest income was a mere 10x, I would not be worried about inequality at all. And I can't agree with "driven by high levels of societal and legal inequality" either. While high societal and legal inequality certainly exist (and probably help somewhat), the concentration of capital is, I think, mainly caused by more fundamental market forces. Synergy, anti-competitive practices, barriers to entry, economies of scale, mergers, and so on. Lobbying for laws that entrench existing corporations is one of the factors, that could fall under "societal and legal inequality", but I think capital would concentrate even without that, albeit slightly slower.