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Comment by ericjang | Hacker News Reader

The analysis in this article was based on data from Thomas Piketty and collaborators, who have also compiled an extremely detailed and comprehensive analysis of the subject of capital & wealth & inequality. I highly recommend Piketty's book, "Capital in the 21st Century" (see Goodreads comments for abridged summaries and reviews by readers). Not only is it totally convincing (and depressing), but it also provides a very clear understanding of the course of modern history since the 19th century. It's amazing to see how clear economic policy (whether Marxist or Capitalist or anything in between) becomes when viewed through the lens of society grappling with the problem of capital/income/inequality.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18736925-capital-in-the-...

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There are few known ecosystems, without a small bunch of apex predators.

If nature hasn't figured out how to do it any different, given the time she has had, neither are we.

If you are not powerful, make yourself useful to the powerful. And that doesn't mean working for a douchebag.

> If nature hasn't figured out how to do it any different, given the time she has had, neither are we.

Not following the logic here at all. What does an economy have to do with an ecosystem? What is "nature"? Are there Apex predator bacteria? How does an Apex preditor map to an economic actor?

This is as lazy naturalist fallacy as it gets.

Nature doesn't have any great goal just like economies don't. They are just chaotic systems we pretend to understand to claim control. The temporary periods such systems achieve some temporary stablity is when heirarchies form. Talk to an ecologist, if you want more plankton in a fixed amount of ocean you have to kill whales. If you want more whales you have produce more plankton as in you need a bigger ocean. Same story with the economy whether you pick Genghis Khan or Mark Zuckerberg you can't produce them without millions of plebs.

Except that compared to the laws of nature, ours are fickle.

There is a point in here. We have a competitive system where the winners are able to capture more resources and power relative to everyone else, and we allow some of these benefits to carry over from generation to generation. It is only natural that some families will acquire so much power and influence relative to most others that they sit in an uncontested position indefinitely.

This has happened many-a-time in history. The Hapsburgs are a powerful family even today. The Japanese royal family is the same family it was 2500 years ago.

You’re committing the naturalistic fallacy that is implies ought.

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