[ksaxena]

There are many systems where if you measure inequality by metrics like wealth or income, you may overestimate the equality in a society. Socialist India before 1991 was such a system - most people appeared equal if you measured wealth or income but in reality there was extreme inequality. Those who had influence over the state (bureaucrats and politicians), regularly decided who got admitted in a hospital and who didn't, who got a telephone connection and who didn't, hell, a common person often couldn't even get a train ticket if he did not know a bureaucrat or a politician. This was so common that the system had a name - "sifarish". So, if anyone could measure an individual's "power" and include it along with wealth and income to measure the society's inequality, you would get an incredibly "inequal" Indian society before 1991 that has since become a lot more equal as socialism has started to wane a little bit here.

[bitwize]

"In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'If you don't work you die.'"

--Rudyard Kipling