You’re posting this like it’s a counterpoint, but it further highlights how disgusting the situation is. We have people becoming trillionaires while 10% of the world’s population is considered to be in extreme poverty. It’s ‘less bad’ than in the past but it’s still absolutely horrifying.
Possibly. If they invested their money into something more societally productive and/or the government took their money to do that or they weren’t allowed to accumulate enough surplus wealth in the first place. Of course the last two options have been a bit problematic historically.
So what? That seems entirely tangential. Unless your point that economic inequality inherently accelerates technological progress (which seems valid at least to some extent)?
I actually think that free market competition has been the main driving force behind human progress for quite a while now. The issue is that the “winning condition” of capitalism results in the complete subversion of that process. So it’s always a balance.