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Re:Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth ... by ryandrake on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:17AM (#15653858)
The way I see it is income inequality is just the derivative of wealth inequality. Opportunity inequality is the derivative of income inequality. Opportunity equality is the idea of a level playing field. When people complain about income inequality, they're really complaining about opportunity inequality, which I believe drives the bulk of income inequality. All that people are asking for is real opportunity equality.

My opportunity to succeed (which drives my potential income, which drives my potential wealth) is not equal to that of a guy whose parents are billionaires, went to private school and an Ivy League college, and has a contact list full of CEOs and high up politicians. My opportunity to succeed is also not equal to that of a guy whose parents are divorced and poor, lives in a gang-ridden neighborhood, and is stuck in the school-to-prison pipeline. The playing field is not level.

Re:Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth ... by moduspol on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @02:44PM (#15656203)
The government can't give you two married parents that love you in a stable household, the best education money can buy, or social connections with powerful people.

It can minimize the value of those things for the people that have them... at least within its borders. I'm not convinced that's in anyone's best interests, though.

Re:Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth ... by dragonwriter on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @02:56PM (#15656340)
> The government can't give you two married parents that love you in a stable household, the best education money can buy, or social connections with powerful people.

It can do the second, and it can create opportunities for the third. And it can help (or hinder) the first. (As a purely hypothetical illustration of that, it could implement a systematically racially biased criminal justice system and engage in a pattern of racially-suitable violence against a specific segment of the adult population, decreasing the number of two-parent present families in that segment.)

Re:Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth ... by moduspol on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @03:10PM (#15656471)
How do we get everyone through Ivy League without lowering the bar? How do you propose the government manage social connections to powerful people?

You're right about it affecting the first, though. Also as a purely hypothetical illustration, it might create a multiple generation-spanning dependency on social programs, make single parent households more economically feasible and socially acceptable as a lifestyle, and foster class warfare that downplays the importance of one's own choices by blaming only others for one's own outcomes.