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Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

This looks like it's talking about 1% in terms of income, or perhaps more specifically, earned income ("wages"). It's not talking about the 1% with respect to accumulated wealth. I would suspect there's some overlap, but the two aren't the same. Much of the "1% wrt accumulated wealth" group wouldn't have "wages" (if I'm understanding this correctly).

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Does it really matter? I challenge the notion that the 1% in terms of "income" is earned through working more or harder.

Rather that "earned income" is either extracted from the work of employees who have no choice but to work for less given the supply of labor vs demand, or it is extracted from one's unearned advantages (genes, better childhood, one's skillset happening to be in short supply, etc).

While the free market may be a good mechanism for allocation of resources and labor for production, I challenge the notion that it is a good mechanism for determining what individuals deserve to keep for themselves.

> one's unearned advantages (genes, better childhood, one's skillset happening to be in short supply, etc).

So what would you consider to be "earned advantages", given that things like "work ethic" and "moral behaviour" are direct consequences of the above?

Do there have to be any? That may be an American myth.

Well, if you don't have any then it becomes somewhat awkward to define any reasonable meaning for "fair".

bingo.

That's a really good call out especially since the 1% in income one year might not be the same as next year, especially since the article mentions owners of small/mid sized companies that might have a really good year and hit the 1%.

The fact that capital gains include both corporate wealth and land value is insane. One is a productive asset that for the most part improves society, and can grow in quantity and value indefinitely. The other (land) is a measure of scarcity for an essential commodity.

It's fine that people make lots of money doing hard or rare work. Also great that people are loaning their saved money so companies can expand. It doesn't make sense for people to get wealthier for owning land.

Yes, and that's because they're challenging Piketty's hypothesis that capital gains are outperforming wages, so they don't care about accumulated wealth (that could have been accumulated through either method).

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