[Here’s the article.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/)
I am just looking to find out if inequality is inevitable.
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This really shouldn’t be surprising to anyone (at least the headline shouldn’t be, perhaps the stuff about the market acting like a physical system is). Basically, if people can do what they want with their money, they use it in ways that increase disparity, as opposed to decreasing disparity by, say, giving all their money away.
Basically, they made a model of economy, where everything is decided by chance (skill and “hard work” is ignored) and found out that with time a few people will hoard all wealth.
They also added few parameters, like “wealth advantage” (gives slight advantage to wealthy) and “wealth redistribution” (takes some money from wealthy and gives them to the poor) and were able to replicate the data from the real world.
Now, the title is a little clickbaity – it doesn’t actually say if inequality inevitable or not. But it does make a few conclusions:
* The economy is not a meritocracy. The wealthy people are not necessary smarter, more skilled or more hardworking than the poor.
* Redistribution of wealth is necessary to stop few people from eventually hoarding all wealth in the country.
At least, that’s what I got from the article. Correct me, if I’m wrong.
Economist among other things here. It’s actually sort of simple mathematically. If a certain percentage of people do things to generate massive fortunes. A certain percentage of them will be successful, then they continue that behavior and then because they now have the means it becomes easier and easier. There are a couple of important things to remember though. There is no pie. It’s a myth that there is a certain amount of wealth to distribute. In reality wealth is created as utility in society is generated through trade. Sorry folks the billionaires are not taking anything from you, in fact they are generating opportunities for you and many others. Many times if they are successful you can own part of their companies and ride the success along with them. There are some caveats though. Because we allow money in our politics we risk deafacto communism. When you look at the mathematics and utility distributions in an objective fashion. Government in business and business in government pencil out as equal. When corporations, which act like individuals and will always be and in fact are by law maximizers, lobby and gain control over politicians, then it’s is mathematically identical to the problems we encounter with socialism and communism. Make no mistake this isn’t a problem with capitalism. Laymen often confuse capitalism with self seeking behavior. That’s a whole other subject. The solution is to. It allow money in politics. (Good luck with that). But if you are economically conservative then remember the next time you support people that get massive donations from corporations or billionaires, you are in fact supporting the mathematical equivalent to socialism/communism. On the other coin if you are one of those people that go on an on about the failures of capitalism, you are sorely wrong and probably economically illiterate. It’s actually the failure to implement capitalism properly and take down corporations with to much market share, avoid mixing business with government, and a bunch of other things that is the real problem. Often actually those that hate capitalism often are so confused that they actually promote that which they hate, and again the other side of the coin, those that champion it often ignore when self interest turns into what they hate also. Solid and true economic education should be as important as reading if we are going to survive as a society.
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