[roenxi]

> The idea that one person can own everything and everyone is equally well off as if they all owned equal shares is wrong on its face.

You say that, but it your counter is also obviously wrong. It would be trivial to have a system where everyone owns equal shares of everything - dissolve private property rights and nationalise. On the face of it that isn't a bad idea but when it is tried it fails spectacularly. I'm not aware of any surviving examples where equal ownership has worked without becoming hopelessly corrupted.

So in practice we know that some level of inequality which, if dropped below, does result in everyone being worse off.

As an interesting aside, ~90% of Canada is owned by the Crown [0]. It isn't obvious that this inequality is their biggest problem w.r.t. living standards.

> Back in reality some portion are pushed onto the street ... and end up dying

Yeah all that stuff does sound awful, but you are not going to the meat of what I was asking. Assuming we aren't creating new wealth (because that would be something that could be done now) then the wealthy will have to give something up so that the poor can gain. What is it? If wealthy people stop going on holidays then retrain the hotel receptionists as doctors? Are wealthy people taking more hours of doctor time than they need and so we make them live with shorter appointments?

I don't believe the wealthy are using enough raw resources for to make a difference; there'd need to be a massive redeployment and upskilling program training new people to have higher skills. That isn't obviously an equality issue, it might be an education problem or related to government healthcare policy.

> Only for the upper middle class does that mean they have just as nice a house in a less desirable neighborhood.

You haven't changed the number or quality of the houses, so you're basically suggesting the middle class and the poor swap houses. If the poor persons prior home wasn't an acceptable dwelling, why would it be acceptable to put a middle class family in it? Is there something wrong with the poor persons house? Is the issue that the wealthy are using too much building material so the poor can't do home repairs?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_land#Canada

[michaelmrose]

You are being deliberately obtuse and confusing the map for the territory.

Can you really not conceive of anything that could be done to decrease inequality less than literally swapping houses?

Money is an abstract store of value so that we don't have to trade goats and houses.

I suggest we tax the rich to fund a better social safety net, education, and free medical care for all Americans.

[roenxi]

> Can you really not conceive of anything that could be done to decrease inequality less than literally swapping houses?

I can think of lots of ways to decrease inequality.

> Money is an abstract store of value so that we don't have to trade goats and houses.

Yes.

> I suggest we tax the rich to fund a better social safety net, education, and free medical care for all Americans.

That is cool and all, but talking hypothetically what if we doubled everyone's real wealth & income? That'd more than double the tax take and the poor would have more to start with to boot.

So that would be a big improvement for everyone even though inequality would have risen some ungodly amount.

Why would the rise in inequality in such a scenario be bad? The list of things you have here is of phenomenon of absolute amounts of resources. Inequality is a phenomenon of relative amounts.

[michaelmrose]

We can tax the rich more next year I don't believe you can credibly claim we can double real wealth by next year.

[roenxi]

:P That does seem unlikely. It is a thought experiment to illustrate that whatever the problem is it is not the inequality per se. Which is why I'm asking questions along the lines of "What is the problem here, and why do people think it is wealth inequality?". I think the problem is a lack of resource provision for the poor.