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Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by socialdemocrat on Sunday September 12, 2021 @07:45PM (#28506234)
I this is a bit pedantic interpretation. Those of us arguing against inequality don’t literally mean that everybody should make the exact same amount of money and live in the same type of house.

What we are arguing against is high levels of inequality, I think most understand that some inequality must exist. But that level is much lower than what you tend to see today.

I think in Nordic countries (where I am from) have shown that relatively low levels of inequality is possible while still achieving economic success. Although we have seen rising levels of inequality in Nordic countries as well as neoliberalism has taken over in Nordics as well.

One has to distinguish between aspirations and hard goals. Equality is a lot about where you want to go as a society. Many free market advocates don’t even view it as a desirable goal. They even view it as harmful.

Unless you are entirely devoid of pragmatism, it is not a harmful goal.

Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by opo on Sunday September 12, 2021 @08:15PM (#28506453)
>...I think in Nordic countries (where I am from) have shown that relatively low levels of inequality ...

None of the Nordic countries have very low wealth inequality and both Denmark and Sweden are in the top 10 for wealth inequality.

Here are the latest available wealth inequality numbers for the Scandinavian countries:

Denmark 0.838

Finland 0.742

Iceland 0.694

Norway 0.798

Sweden 0.867

As a comparison the US is 0.852.

The entire range for the world (where there are stats) is 0.498 - 0.902

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_w

>...What we are arguing against is high levels of inequality, I think most understand that some inequality must exist. But that level is much lower than what you tend to see today.

I think you also need to put things in context and realize that the issue of wealth inequality is one of many variables that determine quality of life. For example, East Timor has one of the world's lowest rankings for wealth inequality at 0.565, but given a choice many people would likely prefer to live in Sweden which has a wealth inequality of 0.867.