[zozbot234]

> Let's put this math in a mirror and do the leftie version of the exponentials

The plot twist is that the 'rightie' and the 'leftie' are both entirely correct. Which is why most developed economies try to remove sources of wasteful, unearned rent and also include significant amounts of redistribution/social insurance rather than relying on pure market outcomes. This doesn't erase the compounding dynamics altogether, but it hopefully ensures that folks at the lowest end of the distribution can keep a tolerable standard of living that doesn't have them 'paying' too much.

[smallmancontrov]

Yep! The equation even has a "left" and "right" term that correspond to political left and right:

    gains = investment * rate_of_return

Left term: rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are. This is an exponential and it creates, reinforces, and perpetuates a class hierarchy where poor people must pay to exist and rich people get paid to exist. Capitalism is a Softmax function.

Right term: capital allocation decisions are made with skin in the game. Every chunk of the economy has a responsible owner who is rewarded/punished and promoted/demoted for good/bad decisions. Capitalism is a Q-learning algorithm.