This is a great question. I personally think that the answer is 'we really don't know', but that is a cop out answer, combined with my own ignorance of deep economics.
However I do know that when this question is posed (in various forms), the answers seem to all be rooted in a combination of ideology and differing priorities, some of the arguments are circular, some are based on a set of assumptions, and in various combinations. For a sampling of things i've seen[1]:
* The capital disbursement problem is hard, and that it naturally evolves into this pattern, similar to hubs in a scale-free network. It may look inefficient, but really is the result of maximizing efficiency
* A truly free market would not have this problem, but government regulations create it by favoring some over others.
* Government isn't strict enough, allowing some bad players to accumulate enough money and power to get away with anything and becoming these power nodes.
* Modern economic theory is just not capable of describing reality, because much like early undergrad physics, the theory is simple and nice, but when getting to real issues, actual issues (akin to friction, thermodynamics etc) cause inefficiencies that are hard to fully account for.
* Individual greed and shortsightedness cause people with lots of capital to act in a manner counter to efficient capital investment.
* People with all the capital are morally superior and deserve their position, (various morals at play - from religious to it is earned via hard work)
* It doesn't actually matter, because the high end pulls the bottom up with it, e.g. those pools of capital create jobs directly and indirectly (the latter being such things as creating early demand for products allowing for production to be figured out, eventually lowering price, allowing more production research to lower price more).
I certainly hope people jump in here and expand on all of these, because almost certainly someone here knows more than me about all of them. I think it would be useful for all involved to state their base assumptions, because for some reason, discussions of this topic don't ever seem to examine those, and it would be neat to get to that level once in a while.
[1] Please note, I am not taking a side on any of these, just presenting various arguments as I understand them.
However I do know that when this question is posed (in various forms), the answers seem to all be rooted in a combination of ideology and differing priorities, some of the arguments are circular, some are based on a set of assumptions, and in various combinations. For a sampling of things i've seen[1]:
* The capital disbursement problem is hard, and that it naturally evolves into this pattern, similar to hubs in a scale-free network. It may look inefficient, but really is the result of maximizing efficiency
* A truly free market would not have this problem, but government regulations create it by favoring some over others.
* Government isn't strict enough, allowing some bad players to accumulate enough money and power to get away with anything and becoming these power nodes.
* Modern economic theory is just not capable of describing reality, because much like early undergrad physics, the theory is simple and nice, but when getting to real issues, actual issues (akin to friction, thermodynamics etc) cause inefficiencies that are hard to fully account for.
* Individual greed and shortsightedness cause people with lots of capital to act in a manner counter to efficient capital investment.
* People with all the capital are morally superior and deserve their position, (various morals at play - from religious to it is earned via hard work)
* It doesn't actually matter, because the high end pulls the bottom up with it, e.g. those pools of capital create jobs directly and indirectly (the latter being such things as creating early demand for products allowing for production to be figured out, eventually lowering price, allowing more production research to lower price more).
I certainly hope people jump in here and expand on all of these, because almost certainly someone here knows more than me about all of them. I think it would be useful for all involved to state their base assumptions, because for some reason, discussions of this topic don't ever seem to examine those, and it would be neat to get to that level once in a while.
[1] Please note, I am not taking a side on any of these, just presenting various arguments as I understand them.