Imagine a factory that's dumping large amounts of arsenic into the public drinking water supply -- a factory that can't operate without doing so. Imagine also that studies show small amounts of arsenic are safe, but large amounts in drinking water can cause serious negative health effects.

Seeing these studies, someone comes along and proposes a regulation that limits the amount of arsenic this factory is allowed to dump into the public water supply, to keep it within safe levels.

A critic then comes along and says: "The amount of arsenic in the water is not the root problem -- the root problem is that arsenic makes people sick. We should focus on helping people not get sick when exposed to arsenic! That way, we wouldn't have to hurt this job-creating factory."

This feels like what PG is arguing for here. In an ideal world, where governmental systems were purely representative and incorruptible, and where markets were efficient and impossible to manipulate, sure, focusing on huge economic inequality wouldn't make sense. But we don't live in this world, just like we don't live in a world where we can easily make people immune to large amounts of arsenic.