"When I arrived in the office one day I saw my boss coming in with a new big Porsche. I said to him 'nice car' and he replied 'well, if you continue to work hard and give everything to this company, I might be able to get myself another one for Christmas'"
We keep hearing the argument that government subsidy or protectionist legal barriers are responsible for inequality, but I think it's an inherent feature of capitalism.<p>Owning the means of production, whether it's a company or factory, land, patents, natural resources, or simply a brand name, give you a share of "monopoloy power" to some extent, and puts you on a different plane to workers.
Your wealth automatically rises with the hard work, creativity and success of those workers, and allows to you to buy ever more "productive assets". The value of which constantly increases to remain beyond average workers' grasp.
See also: "The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still [in 2016] the richest families in Florence"<p><a href="https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/" rel="nofollow">https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-14...</a>
The article doesn’t say... How is “the richest 1%” defined? Is it by networth? Yearly total compensation? And at what values must one be to meet the definition?
Here's what I'm wondering:<p>- How do you measure inequality?<p>- What amount of inequality is acceptable?<p>- What amount of inequality should be targeted?<p>Inequality is part of any system. It's inevitable due to the inherent randomness of our universe.
The article contradicts itself.<p>First it says that it's not managers that are increasing inequality then they say a bunch of businesses that are behind it.<p>Quote:
Almost all of the growth in top American earners has come from just three economic sectors: professional services, finance and insurance, and health care, groups that tend to benefit from regulatory barriers that shelter them from competition.<p>I've never met an individual that offers insurance... it's a corporation. So... if it's not managers the only other thing is the owners of these corporations.<p>But the New York Times didn't want to say that!<p>More fake news bullshit.
TLDR:<p>Financial and medical fields have a lot of rich people because of regulatory capture (i.e. no or little competition because they make the rules).