That reductio ad absurdum, and most likely not what the OP meant. The idea that a fair society is one where inequalities are rather low is not exclusive to extreme left ideologies. How you articulate inequality and justice is one of the most pertinent way to describe right vs left ideologies, and economics do not preclude either view (up to a certain degree).
If you read serious works about how fairness and inequality relate in modern democracy (for example John Rawls), you will realize that the concept is certainly worth of consideration. Being of a normative nature, it is obviously a matter of personal judgement and opinion, but the idea that inequalities are mostly bad by nature cannot be dismissed as naive, stupid or both.
Finally, I have never seen any serious economic work which claim that inequality was necessary for an health economy. There is a lot of studies about policies which tried to decrease inequalities with disastrous consequences, of course, but that's different.
Low inequalities and no inequalities are very different.
Suppose that we start with equal wealth. And then I buy and consume a chocolate bar. Odds are that I'm now happier and poorer than you. Who would seriously argue that this wealth inequality is a bad thing?
I'm right there with people who complain about the amount of inequality that we have today. I don't think that it is healthy or productive. But if you believe in having private property and money, you have accepted that some level of inequality is acceptable.
Well, sure, it is impossible to have 0 inequality if you consider pure equality, but that's a trivial remark. The notion of equality almost always makes sense only in a statistical sense (are two values statistically different), unless you have a discrete observation.
Maybe that high school dropout is wasting his life away because he sees no means of being successful.
I think you'll find that most people who prefer to stay at home and mooch off the system do so because to make their life just slightly better would require them to seriously bust their asses. That means their effective compensation would be very low (maybe zero or even negative in some cases).
We have and have had societies in the past where everyone got equal compensation. Do you think those societies allowed loafers to goof off all day and contribute nothing?
We have and have had societies in the past where everyone got equal compensation. Do you think those societies allowed loafers to goof off all day and contribute nothing?
That's not better. If someone wants to be lazy, put in the minimum effort, and spend the rest of their time playing games that's their choice and they shouldn't be punished for it by forcing them to contribute to society to "earn" what they've been forced to receive. That cure is far, far worse than the disease.
I'm just saying loafers isn't a deal breaker. Past societies dealt with it by not allowing it. If we ever realize a future utopia we could probably live with a small percentage of the population spending their whole life doing nothing but gaming. But it is my strong (completely unprovable without actually trying it) suspicion that many people who game their lives away actually would rather be doing something else (e.g. working in a space station), they just don't feel they have the option.
No thanks. That idea is brain dead.