[thfuran]

What exactly is the difference?

[simbolit]

Situation 1, Year 1: Rich person has 100, the one hundred poor people have 1.

Situation 1, Year 2: Rich person has 150, the one hundred poor people have 1.2

Situation 2, Year 1: Rich person has 100, the one hundred poor people have 1.

Situation 2, Year 2: Rich person has 150, the one hundred poor people have 0.8

Both situations show increasing wealth inequality, but only one shows wealth redistribution up the ladder.

[epidemian]

Other dynamics, like inflation and gentrification to name a couple, can make Situation 1 basically the same in practice to Situation 2. It just makes it more difficult to point out because "everyone's money number has gone up, so the system works!"

[simbolit]

I agree, the difference isn't large. But my parent was asking for the difference, and I think that is the difference.

[toenail]

If inequality was the problem, redistribution could fix it. If redistribution is the problem, simply doing more redistributing won't fix anything.

[thfuran]

No amount of redistribution from the bottom to the top will correct inequality.