[alistairSH]

Pretty sure Adam Smith captured that in his writings.

Full laissez-faire, free market capitalism generally leads to wealth (and power) imbalance. Regulation is necessary to prevent that (assuming you want to maintain a "fair" democracy of sorts and not regress to oligarchy).

[scottyah]

I can't see any system where people are treated fairly (equally and able to reap benefits of their labor aka not slaves) that won't lead to inequality. People are just different, and will have different production rates.

[alistairSH]

Sure, and that's mostly ok. I earn more than many people, some people earn more than me.

The problem is that extreme wealth imbalance leads to a power imbalance that tends to throw society into turmoil. The French Revolution being a canonical example.

[wredcoll]

Broadly speaking, I think most people would agree that Maria Hernandez the world renowned neurosurgeon who does 200 surgeries a year makes dozens or perhaps even hundred of times the amount Joe Smith the housr cleaner makes.

Even if they perhaps work the same number of hours a year, Maria has more training and (maybe) some kind of rarer aptitude and as a result we have a lot more house cleaners than neurosurgeons (in america and other places there a whole bunch of other factors like who gets access to the training and so on that causes some of these imbalances, but that's a whole 'nother comment).

The people, in general, are probably considerably less happy with the idea that jk rowling the ultrarich author gets to use her money to try to pass laws taking rights away from people she doesn't like.

Look at the difference between Ellison and Musk. Ellison is probably has similar levels of power to Musk, but he (afaik) mostly uses it to buy giant yachts and annoy other fortune 500 companies, and as a result most people don't really care that he's a billionaire.

Musk, on the other hand, tries to use his power to screw with government services and publically attack minorities and so on.