> It isn't envy some feel when they can't afford medical care for themselves and those they care about. This applies to a lot of things in additional to medical care.
When people say “inequality isn’t a problem” they mean it isn’t a problem on its own, assuming living standards are decent for most. Even Friedman and Hayek were for UBI and safety nets respectively. Healthcare, housing and education are too expensive today, even the extreme libertarians don’t deny this.
>If they ultra wealthy lived under the same system as everyone else then perhaps, but they don't. They have oversized influence of most every aspect of our lives which isn't conducive for a stable democracy.
This is unfounded. The influence of the wealthy on politics is insignificant relative to public opinion. David Shor has demonstrated that big donors are to the economic left of their party bases for both R and D. Trump and Bloomberg presidential campaigns are vivid illustrations of the limits of money in politics.
They’re forcing Musk to go through a deal he signed but doesn’t want now. Billionaires parted with half of their net worths in their divorce settlements. Neither of these would have happened in any other society in the world at any point in history.(My relatives from Asia were baffled, they asked me why these guys don’t simply bribe the judges, find legal loopholes or even use the threat of force to silence their (ex)wives.)
The wealthy in America today inherited their wealth to a lesser extent than in Europe, and again also relative to the wealthy in any society in history.
When people say “inequality isn’t a problem” they mean it isn’t a problem on its own, assuming living standards are decent for most. Even Friedman and Hayek were for UBI and safety nets respectively. Healthcare, housing and education are too expensive today, even the extreme libertarians don’t deny this.
>If they ultra wealthy lived under the same system as everyone else then perhaps, but they don't. They have oversized influence of most every aspect of our lives which isn't conducive for a stable democracy.
This is unfounded. The influence of the wealthy on politics is insignificant relative to public opinion. David Shor has demonstrated that big donors are to the economic left of their party bases for both R and D. Trump and Bloomberg presidential campaigns are vivid illustrations of the limits of money in politics.
They’re forcing Musk to go through a deal he signed but doesn’t want now. Billionaires parted with half of their net worths in their divorce settlements. Neither of these would have happened in any other society in the world at any point in history.(My relatives from Asia were baffled, they asked me why these guys don’t simply bribe the judges, find legal loopholes or even use the threat of force to silence their (ex)wives.)
The wealthy in America today inherited their wealth to a lesser extent than in Europe, and again also relative to the wealthy in any society in history.