Economic inequality is just recast "jealousy."

In my experience it's impossible to reason with these people.

"these people" i mean yeah if you are going to reason with an imaginary monolith, then yes you will find it impossible

“Let them eat cake,” would be more succinct here and brevity is the soul of wit!

> Even if everyone in the world got free entry to Harvard (no jokes please)

It's not a joke, because some students do get "free" entry to Harvard, due to their parents paying for it.

i'm not sure where this idea arises, that parents doing things for their children is the root of all social evil. it's a bit ridiculous on its face, since it's a prime way to improve the lot of the next generation

Nobody was talking about "social evil". But it's plainly the root of much economic inequality, which is the topic.

Separate questions:

(1) Should we accept some level of economic inequality in society?

(2) Are the wealthy more "deserving" of their wealth than the non-wealthy?

It's perfectly consistent to answer (1) Yes and (2) No to those questions.

Capitalism is an economic system, not an ethical system. The "invisible hand of the market" is not God handing out rewards and punishment, though some people seem to believe that.

For sure. And I'd add that the acceptance of inequality as a reward does not imply anything about inherited inequality.

Even if we grant the proposition that a good way for society-wide progress is to harness the desire of some to have superior positions by forcing them to work hard at creating value for others, it doesn't really follow that inheritance is a good idea. Indeed, you could argue that it's just the opposite, if we really want a nation of hard workers, we have to make sure the youth can't get away with being lazy just because of some historic success that they didn't have any part in.

there has never and will never be a society without economic inequality. may as well debate accepting the sun

You’re assuming economic inequality will always exist, and using that to at least imply that the answer to “What should we as a society do about economic inequality?” is “Nothing.”

There’s a whole lot that a society can do to address the negative aspects of wealth inequality. Almost all of it means that the wealthiest people will have to make some sacrifices—in proportion to their wealth, *incredibly small* sacrifices—and will have to accept that just being poor shouldn’t be a death sentence, that everyone should have food, and water, and housing, and education, and medical care, and transportation, to a reasonable baseline level, simply for existing.

Our species is prosperous enough that no member need ever experience homelessness, nor hunger, nor untreated injury nor disease, nor unwilling ignorance, nor an inability to pull up stakes and move. The only reason the status quo persists is that it is to a small number of wealthy and powerful peoples’ benefit, not because it’s the best possible arrangement for society.

Did you notice what I didn’t suggest? I didn’t suggest that the rich should lose their wealth or position. In fact, they don’t even necessarily have to pay more in taxes than the middle class. They just need to pay around the same *proportionately* as the middle class.

> In fact, they don’t even necessarily have to pay more in taxes than the middle class.

The top 20% of earners pay more taxes than the other 80% of earners combined.

This is due primarily to the total amount of their earnings rather than their tax rates.

Parents doing things for their children *to give them unearned advantage* is in fact *a* root cause of social evil.

It’s saying “Because this person is a Jones, they deserve a spot at Yale even though others are more academically deserving, and we will pay you for that privilege.”

This is also why grade inflation happens at these institutions: “You can’t fail him, he’s a Jones!”

And some get free entry to Harvard because they got admitted and have full need-based scholarships.

You're missing the point, which is that kids who "chose" the right parents get vastly more opportunities than those with less luck at birth, and the lucky ones don't have to work as hard or have as much talent as the unlucky.

Do you think the world would be better off if this effect were eliminated, ie that people could not preferentially help their own children? Or are you simply pointing out that life is not fair?

> Do you think the world would be better off if this effect were eliminated

I don't know. I do think the world would be better off if we eliminated homelessness, student loan debt, medical debt, and political campaign financing. These are some of the worst consequences of economic inequality in society.

> Or are you simply pointing out that life is not fair?

Well, I personally don't think that so-called "meritocracy" is fair or ideal. I was born with some advantages over the majority of people, and my academic talents started to show at a relatively young age (with no "hard work" — it was easy work!), but I don't think I "deserved" to be born that way, nor do I think that I "deserve" more money than other people as a result of my advantages.

I understand capitalistic supply and demand, and that may be a decent economic system. It's not an inherently ethical system, however.

why does everything have to be a dual. in life practically nothing is. I can both be biased towards my children's success, and still understand that as a society we're all much better off giving some opportunity to the generally downtrodden.

in most european countries, university is mostly free. and they offer financial support for those who need it (because you still have to pay for food and rent if you can't live with your parents), which effectively does eliminate the ability for parents to help their children get into a good university.

Everyone else pays to network with them, so it probably makes sense to give them free entry.

No, that's false. The presence of opportunity does not necessitate unequal spoils. The final outcome of inequality is total monopoly, which is the death of opportunity for all but the monopoly.

Opportunity is not meritocracy. I have no issue with guaranteed basic life support for everyone, with additional privileges for those who contribute more through some combination of talent and effort.

But this only works if there is true equality of opportunity with completely open universal access to education, health, basic tech and tools, high quality unbiased news, and social opportunities.

The real cause of inequality is privileged parents trying to tilt the scales for their kids and their social class.

You may say "That's only natural" - but so was cannibalism until we worked out that it's a really stupid idea and does a lot more harm than good.

The real costs of unearned "elite" family privilege are almost unimaginable. We're so used to how things are that we can't even see how much this arrangement has blocked progress in every discipline.

Not only does it pollute politics, democracy, and the media, hoard resources uselessly, and cause untold human suffering, it also guarantees that most of the talent in each generation is suppressed and wasted.

Well said and evident once ideological goggles are removed.

> The real cause of inequality is privileged parents trying to tilt the scales for their kids and their social class.

I really don’t think this is true in a meaningful way. Despite your appeal to cannibalism (of all things), it certainly is natural for people to want to help their family and friends. Without that instinct, we have neither.

Whatever the solution to inequality, it will need to take into account that people like helping people they like. This is why social programs like free healthcare and education are so important - we need to neutralise the benefit of “tilting the scales”, rather than asking people to change perfectly reasonable behaviour.

There’s a gulf of difference between “helping family and friends” and, say, allowing legacy admissions at the universities that feed the majority of the highest status jobs in our society, or even allowing public schools to falter (much less *be intentionally sabotaged*) because some people can afford a private education for their children.

I completely agree with you. I am absolutely not arguing against policies intended to level the playing field - quite the opposite, I think that everyone should be allowed the opportunity to thrive regardless of age, identity, class, health, or anything else.

My point is that the desire to “tilt the scales for their kids and their social class” seems innate, and any mechanism that we create to improve equality needs to take this into account at a fundamental level, or it will either be rejected or compromised.

> If you have an economy with opportunity, you will have inequality.

It doesn't work the other way, though. As with any complex dynamic system, the relationship between opportunity and inequality is neither unidirectional nor linear. Consider that there are two well known systems where opportunity is very low. The one you obviously had in mind is perfect enforced equality, often associated with communism[1]. The other is most commonly referred to as feudalism[2]. In other words, both very low and very high levels of inequality result in near-zero opportunity. The interesting range is in the middle - another hallmark of complex systems BTW. When most people refer to wealth inequality they mean a level beyond which opportunity is driven back down, and argument should proceed on that basis. Presenting this as "zero inequality with zero opportunity vs. non-zero amounts of both" is both counterfactual and non-constructive, to say the least.

[1] No actual communist system at significant scale ever had equality as a feature. More often, the medium of exchange shifted from hard currency to some form of reputation, standing, etc. but the inequality most definitely still existed.

[2] Apparently historians consider "feudal" to be a hopelessly ambiguous term. In this context "manorial" might be more accurate but nobody would recognize it.

And also remember that if you have an unfair playing field you will have inequality.

> Reminder: If you have an economy with opportunity, you will have inequality.

This is really tautological if you define opportunity as advantage over others.