Only if you believe the economy is zero-sum. But that wouldn't explain the overall rising wealth that's been going on in the US for over two centuries.
None of that is false. You just forgot to mention the overall rising inequality in the USA (over a shorter, more relevant, time period, ie not two centuries) whilst other, some might say more forward thinking countries, are levelling out.
I'm not concerned if other people have more dollars than I do. They are not accumulating wealth at my expense - they are creating wealth. As a byproduct of the wealth they produce, I have nice things like computers and the internet and can work at home and watch an incredible smorgasbord of stuff on TV and push a button and whatever I want gets dropped on my doorstep the next day. I can take MIT courses for free on youtube. Oh, and I get to talk with people all over the world on HN, for free.
Most of the boom is coming from the tech sector, as tech is revolutionizing productivity in all sorts of endeavors. They didn't steal the money from you or I.
I can even buy shares in those tech companies for $0 commission and get a cut of the wealth they create.
We're living in a golden age in the US. Even poor people have a computer in their pocket with instant access to the world's information. How cool is that?
I'm not in agreement with your description of 'creating wealth'. We (society) have had this computer in our pockets for a while, seems to be making things less equal, as per the report.
It (your clothes, car, food, phone) is at the expense of slave labor around the world.
I'm not pessimistic. Health, hunger, literacy, longevity, are on the up. But Wealth Inequality, the OP topic, is also on the up. To view things otherwise is turning your back on the plight of others. Such issues are not conquered, there is no final victory. Each generation must fight the same battles to maintain their voices and remain relevant.
You're framing things in terms of inequality. Here's another way - are you better off with a phone? If so, then things are better for you. If not, why did you buy it, and why don't you throw it away?
If you're better off, who cares if someone else is even better off? There's always going to be someone stronger, taller, handsomer, younger, wealthier, smarter, healthier than you. You'll just make yourself miserable worrying about it.
I don't spend my time worrying about Michael Phelps being a faster swimmer than me. I couldn't care less that Usain Bolt runs faster than me. My genes are not favorable for excelling in sport, and I simply don't care that other people have an advantage there.
P.S. my phone makes my life better every day. I could list all the ways, but it's pretty obvious. Its benefit to me is far, far more than what I paid for it. I don't want to go back to the 1970's and have no phone. It's free markets and inequality that made that phone.
Correct, the topic. You seem to view 'inequality' as you and I looking enviously up at Michael Phelps. You may be, but I am looking down at who we are leaving behind.
>If you're better off, who cares if someone else is even better off?<
The clear point is I am concerned that people are worse off.
But carry on telling me how that 1996 book means we can all be millionaires (if we would just buy it).
Not true. Nowhere. Ever. Many factors decide your course in life, including your own choices. One does not simply get to decide every choice. Parents may or may not be to 'blame' for any, some, or all of it.
This is true, and not the sales-speak adage 'it's all up to you'.
theoretically, the economy overall may not necessarily be zero-sum.
Many smaller games, of the size you are actually going to be playing in your life, are exactly zero-sum.
Limited number of startups in every batch of YC. zero sum.
Limited amount of seed funding available globally for startup. zero-sum.
Even fewer funding available for Series-B. zero-sum.
The economy grows substantially every year. How is that possible if it is zero-sum?
> are exactly zero-sum
Sports games, like baseball, are exactly zero-sum, because they are deliberately set up and enforced as win-lose. Free markets, on the other hand, are based on win-win.
> The economy grows substantially every year. How is that possible if it is zero-sum?
It is (approximately, in the developed world) zero-sum because outside of the most extreme poverty, experienced utility is a function much more of relative material position than of absolute position, so increases in inequality drives disutility while improvements in absolute position accompanying such increases do not significantly offset the disutility from inequality (and the reverse would be true with increasing equality even with declines in aggregate absolute position.)
The book I mentioned will put you in the know.
> and at the expense of others
Only if you believe the economy is zero-sum. But that wouldn't explain the overall rising wealth that's been going on in the US for over two centuries.