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Comment by SMAAART | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain to me why "Wealth Inequality" is a problem?

If my neighbor has more then me, how is that an issue?

Now, I do understand that:

* Doing something illegal is wrong, but if someone aquired wealth legally, I don't see the inequality a problem.

* Poverty is a problem but poverty is a problem whether 100% of the population is poor, or is a minority of the population is poor, or the majority of the population is poor; because the problem is poverty, not the inequality

* I can also see how a different taxation philosophy would alleviate poverty, but then again that is a solution to poverty, not a solution to wealth inequality.

So, why is "wealth inequality" a problem?

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One argument could be that on some zero sum games, wealth inequalities create material inequalities. An exemple is real estate. Major measures can be confort vs. business advantage: a large house in the middle of nowhere v. a small apartment in a 1-tier city. The wealthier you are, the more of a somewhat fixed quantity of space in a 1-st tier city you can have. It reduces the space available to less wealthier people, may decrease their confort and therefore their productivity. I'm not sure working on wealth inequalities is the best way to work on that, but wanted to make the point that it can be seen as the root cause of certain problems, given the rules we have chosen to attribute certain ressources.

> * Doing something illegal is wrong, but if someone aquired wealth legally, I don't see the inequality a problem.

If you are rich enough, you can influence what is illegal. I don't know of a system of government that is robust to this kind of problem.

"Doing something illegal is wrong"

Is "illegal" the complete set of "wrong", in your opinion? I.e. is it possible to do something "wrong" that is legal/not illegal? If so, then it follows that it is possible that some have accumulated wealth "wrongly". For example, by exploiting laborers.

In those cases, it makes sense to really consider the implications of a system that supports that.

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