We are benefiting everyone. Technology improves the quality of life for everyone, the benefits may be concentrated right now but over time they'll be dispersed. We are freeing labor from tasks, the problem is that we are in a transition period where their new tasks are not well understood. Overall software eating the world will make everyone significantly richer.
Also, as always wealth is not a zero sum game. Just because someone has 100X the wealth you do, does not mean that they stole from you, or that you are poorer. In fact your standard of living has probably increased.
> Also, as always wealth is not a zero sum game. Just because someone has 100X the wealth you do, does not mean that they stole from you, or that you are poorer.
While this makes us sleep well at night, please consider that the top richest are often connected to:
- Externalizing costs to countries with corrupt/authoritarian governments
- Tax evasion
- Companies backed by strong governments' tax money (theft by the state), later privatized for pennies because the government is broke and/or corrupt
- Banking, which never follow free-market rules
- Oil and mining companies, which aren't taxed proportional to the intrinsic environmental and social impacts
While wealth doesn't comes from theft, wealth concentration requires a dose of unethical behavior and not observing some people's fundamental rights. When you're at that level of capital it's an entire different game.
Then the problem is not wealth inequality it's government intervention and government corruption. So we should stop talking about wealth and start talking about corruption.
I think they both merit discussion, as one enables the other. Ignoring corruption, the super wealthy can set the topic if not the tone of discourse for entire nations (and increasingly do).
Also, as always wealth is not a zero sum game. Just because someone has 100X the wealth you do, does not mean that they stole from you, or that you are poorer. In fact your standard of living has probably increased.