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I am reminded of PG's essay on income inequality. Worth reading if you haven't: http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.h

• norswap 12y ago
  I haven't read this particular essay, but I've read those on wealth and income inequality from Hackers & Painters, and those seems rather similar from what I've skimmed. PG makes a good point when he says that inequality is not intrinsically bad. It's not bad if the quality of life of both the poor and the rich increase. The fact is that it has been shown that the quality of life of the poor has in fact decreased. In this context, the rise of inequality doesn't seem agreeable. Especially when you consider the source of this inequality: entrepreneurs are not out to eat the poor people's lunch; but if the crisis has shown anything, it's that greed at multiple strategic points in the system (esp. the banking system) had very bad consequences for the people ground by the wheels of said system. I think it's useful to keep in mind the time at which those essays were written (first half of the 2000s), when such opinion may have been easier to form. I'm curious to know if PG would write the same today.