[irrational]

In the history of humanity? That reads to me like you are not very familiar with history. We are probably living in the period of the least wealth inequality in all of human history.

The typical “poor” person living in the USA lives in the lap of luxury (in terms of clothing, food, shelter, etc) compared to a serf in medieval Europe, a peasant under the Assyrians, etc. I mean, how many poor people have running water, electricity, Air Conditioning, etc.? Can you imagine a poor person from 3,000 years ago seeing that and then hearing talk about wealth inequality? It would sound insane.

Cesar Augustus was worth $4.6 Trillion. That’s a pretty huge wealth disparity to a common person back then. What about Mansa Musa? His wealth was so vast that nobody even knows how to put a number to it. Do you think the common people under him were rich?

[hotpotamus]

You know, I see this sort of inequality apologism in every one of these threads, but people sure seem pissed off at the system for some reason or other.

[irrational]

I’m not saying there isn’t bad wealth inequality. I’m just saying that it is very far from the worst in all of human history.

[hotpotamus]

Given that there are still humans on Earth who live essentially as they would have thousands of years ago in hunter-gatherer or subsistence agricultural societies, you could also say that wealth inequality has only increased throughout human history and every day is worse than the one that has come before it.

[irrational]

If we are going to consider every single person on earth at the same time, then the time of Mansa Musa would have to be the absolutely worse since he was wealthier than any person on Earth today. Heck, even if you combined every billionaire on earth today, Mansa Musa would still be wealthier than all of their combined fortunes by at least an order of magnitude.

[hotpotamus]

Do you think inequality has any deleterious effects on society?

[irrational]

Of course. The question here is not one of whether wealth inequality is bad, but if we are living in the period of the greatest wealth inequality in all of human history.