> we should care about how wealth was generated, and the gap itself is less important. I don't understand this. How does finding out what caused the wealth gap

> we should care about how wealth was generated, and the gap itself is less important. I don't understand this. How does finding out what caused the wealth gap — and then nodding appreciatively that's it exists for the "right" reasons — help the bottom four-fifths who are getting more and more left behind? If all that matters is that those attaining wealth are doing so now more "meritocratically," will it still be fine if the number of people becoming wealthy dwindles down to a smaller and smaller percent of the population, so long as they are all Bezoses who made their own companies? > so the "small percentage of people" who can start companies now is larger than it was 40 years ago. First of all, I'm not sure of your evidence of this — it may be "easier" in some sense, but is there actually more class mobility now, and is the percentage of people becoming wealthy actually growing? I think not [1] — but more importantly, if it's on the backs of the lower four-fifths of the population's wages stagnating or decreasing, how is it a good thing if one or two more percent can become wealthy? The probability of the average American earning equal to or more than their parents is lower than it has even been. [2] So are these families supposed to be happy that a couple more MBAs are able to make ten million dollars selling an app that lets you apply augmented reality to your cat? 1. Long-term decline in intergenerational mobility in the United States since the 1850s: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/1/251 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/1/251 2. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar...