[schoen]

The issue about how much the rewards for being wealthy promote productive behavior reminds me of the remark by David D. Friedman that

> My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee to be was being lazy and living on what he could gather--so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee's labor. But the leftist doesn't like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don't like that hypothetical.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_o...

I often suspect Friedman is right that a lot of normative disagreements boil down to different intuitions about what people typically do to become wealthier.

[CryptoPunk]

Yes, agreed on the different intuitions on the source of wealth.

The fact that market economies so vastly outperform non-market ones is a pretty clear indication that wealth-generation in market economies generally has positive economic externalities, and as such is socially beneficial on the balance.