I agree that inequality is a growing problem for our economic and democratic models, but I think we need to keep two things seperate: Inequality of resource usa

I agree that inequality is a growing problem for our economic and democratic models, but I think we need to keep two things seperate: Inequality of resource usage and inequality of resource ownership. The super rich may be thousands or hundereds of thousands of times as wealthy as the average person, but they do not eat thousands of times as much and they do not personally use thousands of times as much energy as the rest of us. The 0.1% and not even the 1% can ever eat enough for the rest of us to go hungry. There isn't going to be famine due to resource scarcity in developed countries. At least not because the rich have used all the resources. This hasn't always been the case. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not a historian) that hundereds or thousands of years ago the elites could actually use not just own so much of the available resources that there wasn't enough left for the masses. Inequality of asset ownership is to a large degree inequality of power. Mr. Brin can wake up tomorrow and say ha!, today I'm going to set up a lab staffed with top scientists that are going to figure out how to build a space elevator. Or he can buy himself a senator or two. I can't do that. He can. But we can both eat and the food won't be that different (I believe).