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It's very easy to make the logical leap that increasing inequality is equivalent to "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". And most people don't necessa

It's very easy to make the logical leap that increasing inequality is equivalent to "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". And most people don't necessarily have a problem with "the rich get richer" part, but they do object to "the poor get poorer". It is a leap though. Bezos, Gates, Musk, Buffet, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg all started as regular people and became ultra-rich through their work and ideas. But it's not a complete fallacy either. If you are a real estate owner in New York City, your assets continue appreciating at a good pace, well above inflation, and you have a vested interest in NIMBY, which does indeed restrict social mobility. Social mobility, or social mobility opportunity are harder to measure though, so a lot of people are ok with using the inequality as a proxy. I do agree with you that it's an imperfect proxy, and focusing on it can have negative side-effects.

disgruntledphd2 7y ago
I'm pretty sure that all of the people you note had middle-class to upper-middle-class parents, so potentially you are proving Piketty's point.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  We can do a random search through the founders of various unicorns. My first hit was Brian Chesky [1], one of the Airbnb founders. His parents were social workers. Stripe was founded by two brothers who were born in Limerick, Ireland. Maybe they were middle class in Limerick, but most likely not rich by global standards. They are now worth $3BN each [2]. Instacart was founded by Apoorva Mehta, who was born in India, and whose parents immigrated to Canada in 2000. Apoorva doesn't have a wikipedia page, but again, very likely his family was not rich. If you go through the wikipedia unicorn list [3], you'll find many founders that appear to be from middle or upper-middle class, but also many founders from lower-middle class as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Chesky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Chesky [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_compan...
  - disgruntledphd2 7y ago
    Like, I appreciate your investigations, but none of those people were mentioned in the original post to which I responded. Mark Zuckerberg: father was a dentist; solidly upper-middle class Bill Gates: mother on the board of IBM, upper-middle class I won't try to talk about anyone except the Collison brothers, and given that I was born somewhat before them in the same country, I can assure you that they were solidly upper-middle class by Irish standards. Also, please note that Patrick Collison attended MIT as an international student, which is not something that poor people do.
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disgruntledphd2 7y ago

I'm pretty sure that all of the people you note had middle-class to upper-middle-class parents, so potentially you are proving Piketty's point.

credit_guy 7y ago
We can do a random search through the founders of various unicorns. My first hit was Brian Chesky [1], one of the Airbnb founders. His parents were social workers. Stripe was founded by two brothers who were born in Limerick, Ireland. Maybe they were middle class in Limerick, but most likely not rich by global standards. They are now worth $3BN each [2]. Instacart was founded by Apoorva Mehta, who was born in India, and whose parents immigrated to Canada in 2000. Apoorva doesn't have a wikipedia page, but again, very likely his family was not rich. If you go through the wikipedia unicorn list [3], you'll find many founders that appear to be from middle or upper-middle class, but also many founders from lower-middle class as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Chesky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Chesky [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_compan...
- disgruntledphd2 7y ago
  Like, I appreciate your investigations, but none of those people were mentioned in the original post to which I responded. Mark Zuckerberg: father was a dentist; solidly upper-middle class Bill Gates: mother on the board of IBM, upper-middle class I won't try to talk about anyone except the Collison brothers, and given that I was born somewhat before them in the same country, I can assure you that they were solidly upper-middle class by Irish standards. Also, please note that Patrick Collison attended MIT as an international student, which is not something that poor people do.

deleted 7y ago

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