I agree with everything you said and think it's more-or-less true, except for the last paragraph. You said, "And the decision we've made is… we have a big spre

I agree with everything you said and think it's more-or-less true, except for the last paragraph. You said, "And the decision we've made is… we have a big spread where some people at the top are extremely wealthy… and the others on the bottom are not." To me that seems like you're implying the latter is a result of the former, that the rise of rich people/countries is what forces others into poverty. That's the fixed pie fallacy, and it's not actually true. (However, perhaps that's not what you're saying, and I'm misinterpreting.) It's true that some people and places are progressing faster and further than others, but progress is progress. So many of the factor jobs we consider crappy, for example, are huge improvements over the previously available jobs in those places. I do agree there is something distasteful and of course unfair about the disparities in wealth, living conditions, and working conditions, and more can and should be done to help the less fortunate on earth. But I don't think agree that the way to do that is to scale down. To my mind, the chief benefactor of people worldwide is technology: printing, reading, electronics, cheap crops, democracy, healthcare advancements, etc. Technological innovations have ended millennia of stagnation when it comes to human suffering (e.g. famine), lifted billions out of poverty, and improved human happiness. And those innovations are chiefly the result of economic systems that create competitive markets that incentivize innovation. The resulting inequality is a small price to pay, to my mind.