[tootie]

Inequality is simply inherent to capitalism. The free flow of capital, goods and labor will always see concentration happening. The issue is that it should be very possible to eliminate true poverty with reasonable redistribution policy. Capitalism (and Industrialization) have gotten us tantalizing close to a post-scarcity economy. We still need the last 1/3 or so of the world to get on the trolley while addressing our growing ecological crises. Both of which are hard problems to solve, but at this point we actually probably have all the ammunition we need if we can just summon the will. We can reach a point where we still have some absurdly wealthy people, but everyone else down the ladder has food, shelter, health care and dignity available at all times.

[elliekelly]

> Inequality is simply inherent to capitalism.

I can’t say for certain whether or not this is true but I really don’t think it is. The entire premise of capitalism is that we’re all better off through specialization and trade. It’s the _very_first_thing Adam Smith writes in The Wealth of Nations.

We use the word “inequality” a lot at the moment but I think, in some ways, it’s a bit of a misnomer because the true issue the term “inequality” attempts to describe is that people aren’t getting the “better off” end of the deal that capitalism promises. For a lot of people participating in capitalism there isn’t any action in their set of available actions where they’re economically better off than they were before.

[godelski]

It sounds like you're just saying "pareto happens in any resource allocation scheme" which isn't specifically inherit to capitalism and is kinda just what happens when people have resources. I'm not convinced that people can live without resources. Sure, there are concerns when the distribution becomes too long tailed, but what you're describing is inherit to any system (we haven't seen a system where this hasn't happened). Stop creating a boogieman, let's have a good faith conversation instead.

[tootie]

I did not at any point imply that inequality was unique to Capitalism. And I'm not sure what you mean "live without resources". My point is that we have enough resources for everyone to live well even if some people have much more than others. I'm not trying to blame Capitalism for anything. I'm actually trying to say that we can achieve stability and social justice without having to abandon it. We just need a modicum of Socialist policy sprinkled in.

[godelski]

In the current climate the way you phrased things comes off very similarly to the common "capitalism bad, socialism good" argument that lacks a lot of nuance between those opinions. The specificity of capitalism in your statement seems fairly irrelevant to what you have expanded upon, and this likely will just lead to fighting (and I suspect is the reason for your downvotes). It definitely comes off as if you are trying to blame capitalism for the problem, but that may not have been your intent and just that I (many of us?) am primed this way. So I'm trying to pull the conversation away from this "Capitalism v Socialism" argument because it is difficult to have a real conversation when we even approach this framing, even on HN these conversations divulge to a race to the bottom really quickly.

FWIW I don't think the majority of people reject the idea that we need some amounts of regulation, some amounts of social policy/protection, etc. The argument is how much, but we use bad terms to discuss this and definitions people refuse to agree on nor recognize that others are using different definitions.