I suspect the study is interesting but that rather undermines the conclusions as relevant in the modern era. The wealth inequality is because house construction isn't a particularly important store of wealth. It is quite difficult to consume a billion dollars worth of house construction; that is skyscraper or Great Pyramid of Giza territory.
You'd miss most of a contemporary billionaire's wealth if you looked mainly at their housing.
And thats all in the US. Other countries/cultures may have different practices that do not tie wealth to large houses.
The median wealth may be much lower as a result (since a lot of the things that have made us wealthy as the species are driven by pride, greed, and envy) but we may be happier as a people...
If we overcame envy nobody would care about wealth inequality.
1. reset the accumulation every 50 years or more often. The reset can be a war, a dictatorship, revolution, whatever. It's how Eastern Europe has low wealth inequality despite no systemic measures. It's not a stable solution (if you leave them alone they will accumulate capital and become oligarchy unless other measures are implemented). That's why EU Eastern Europe is different from non-EU Eastern Europe by the way - EU is a huge regulatory force preventing oligarchies from arising.
2. taxation + welfare system that redistributes enough wealth to prevent runaway feedback loops. See socialdemocratic Europe.
3. other regulations preventing non-monetary runaway loops (lobbying laws, antimonopoly rules, electoral system preventing influence from money into politics, trade unions, etc.)
4. economy focused on activities that are less suitable for wealth accumulation. This is not a binary switch, more like a spectrum going from hydrocarbons to service based economy. It's also not a long-term solution, it just speeds up or slows down the accumulation. Even in service-based economy you eventually get oligarchy if you have no regulation (see USA).
IMHO the obvious choice is combination of 2 and 3, the others are shortcuts that happen by accident and you can't depend on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
BTW "invasive control" is a biased view. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is just as invasive if not more. The only difference is who is invasive towards whom. I prefer elected officials controlling my employers over unelected billionaires controlling their workers. Notice how in US it's common to have to explain to your boss why you want a day off. Like he owns you and it's his good will that you may be allowed to get sick or to rest.
In EU not only is this illegal - even if it would be legal - it would be a huge breach of etiquette for your employer to ask how exactly are you sick.
For someone from Europe it's USA that looks crazy invasive.
In that case it’s not inevitable at all. The Pareto Principle is an observation, not an immutable law of the universe. Some things have an 80/20 split, others have different percentages, others still do not fit the principle.
And yes, in the case of wealth distribution, public policy is a matter of initiative. That in itself a long discussion because there are many factors involved in policymaking and in what makes policies politically viable, but already, those are more interesting and thoughtful questions than just chalking it all up to “pArEtO pRiNcIpLe”.
Problem being that in the modern day governing power and wealth are pretty much 1:1, and wealthy people don’t have any other principles than wealth, they don’t have morals or religious beliefs that go above wealth for them. So they won’t want to make everyone more financially equal.
E.g. in the communist eastern block, living quarters were quite standardized, and while the very highest levels of society had special arrangements, a professor might have lived in the same quarters as a factory worker. The differences were in the "job extras" such as personal drivers and cars, travel permits, spots on the waiting list for goods and services and social prestige that translated to influence.
Certain early modern European societies, especially protestant ones, also frowned upon overt displays of wealth through bigger and more ostentatious housing. However, that might be detectable archeologically when using build quality as a metric.
Cities like Amsterdam also had very peculiar systems of allotting and taxing building spaces, thereby leading to the well-known equal-sized and narrow houses.
The issue with wealth inequality is it feeds on itself where other forms of influence tend to erode over time and need to be constantly maintained. A surprisingly long list of people could literally donate 100+M to every presidential election for the rest of their life with interest making up the difference before the next election.
And the question begging of assuming that equality is a desirable goal. We also need to look at the cost of equality (of house sizes?) -- if it requires authoritarian government, theocracy, slavery, subjugation of other tribes, maybe it's not necessarily a goal unto it self? Those other factors at least need to be considered!
Truly garbage science writing.
The tribes in the Andaman Islands also have very low wealth inequality, but all they own are bows and arrows and huts.
In less formal or collapsed systems, wealth and resources are often controlled by a ruling oligarchy or individuals whose hard power acts as a de facto property right.
For example, many argue that Vladimir Putin is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, despite lacking formal ownership on paper — his political and military power effectively grants him control over immense resources. Wealth inequality ultimately stems from control over resources, whether legitimized by law or enforced through power.
These are all human constructs and the missing variable is greed, so likely inequality is inevitable once the human condition variables are accounted for
Among native peoples, sharing seems to be the default.
There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse, and right now you're part of the problem.
This is not by coincidence!
Greed applies to more than just 'wealth'. Honour, fame/glory, and power are all things people that people strive for and are envious about:
* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm
Even collectivist communities have a finite supply, or a hierarchy, of those things. Le Guin explored this in The Dispossessed:
Too much inequality means too few participants in the economic decision making process which leads to instability (i.e. the mad king phenomenon). We are getting closer to the point of instability now, as we reach higher levels of inequality.
In order for there to be "too little inequality" to the extent that you describe, it would have to be impossible for anyone to, say, earn more than about $100k/yr (based on current median incomes in the US). So far as I know, no one with an iota of credibility has proposed anything remotely like this.
As it stands, any time any level of increase in taxes on the ultra-wealthy is proposed, people come out of the woodwork claiming that a higher tax rate on those making $100m, $500m, $1b/yr would just destroy all interest in striving and doing well, which is so clearly absurd.
...And, unfortunately, we also know that there are a fair number of people for whom reduced inequality would destroy their ambition, because their ambition has nothing to do with being reasonably wealthy themselves or having financial security: the reward, for them, is very explicitly being able to treat other people like they aren't even human. And that's not something society should ever accept, from anyone.
When was that ever controversial?
The nonstrawman version of the inevitability of wealth inequality is that governance structures which make everyone equal do not succeed.
The governance structures that make possible wealth inequality are themselves inevitable.
How many nomadics were there, and how much wealth did they have?
This question would probably impact the conclusion that there was less wealth inequality back then.
Ooglr gets himself a club, hunts down a few ratty creatures and thinks "that'll do for today, it is nice weather and I'd rather be oogling the cave girls than chasing those stupid ratty creatures so now that I have enough for tonight I'll stop chasing and start oogling". The next day he chases down a few more ratty creatures, calls it a day once he got himself a few and continued oogling. For some reason those girls did not seem to return his longing gaze, could they not recognise him for the successful hunter-of-ratty-creatures that he was?
Gnurgh sees things differently. He finds himself a good-sized elk shoolder blade and starts digging a pit. When the pit is deep enough he covers it with branches and leaves and waits until his intended target - an aurochs - stumbles into the pit. You see, he scouted out aurochs trails until he found a spot where the ground looked good for digging a pit while the beasts could not avoid the spot where he intended to dig his pit. He also prepared a number of spears to dispatch whatever happened to stumble into his pit as well as some flint knives to cut his prey up into slivers. Did I mention the drying racks he made to dry the meat? Well, now I did. Knowing that meat spoils quite fast he started cutting up the oversized cow and worked through the night and the next night upon which he had himself a supply of meat enough to feed a family through the winter (it was a big aurochs). He had placed one of his drying racks next to his fire pit and found out the meat from that rack was more tasty than that from the racks further away from the fire and made a mental note to repeat that the next time with more racks. All the time Gnurgh was hard at work he was watched by some comely cave girls and before long he did have a family to feed through the winter.
Borrr did not like chasing things with clubs. He did not like digging pits either. He half-heartedly tried to catch himself a fish in the stream but the water was cold and the fish slippery so it got away and was probably laughing at him somewhere. Besides, why would he bother? He could just go to one of Gnurgh's drying racks and pilfer some meat? Then, once sated he'd lie in wait for one of those girls.
Is wealth inequality really inevitable?
To quote codr7 without violating HN guidelines:
> There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse.
Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society.
Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ.
[1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/L...
account-5•8h ago
Also, house size? What a weird metric.
haswell•2h ago
If it turned out that wealth inequality was unavoidable, it would change the nature of the solutions worth exploring.
j_maffe•2h ago
latexr•1h ago
Rich people who benefit from everyone else thinking this is the natural way of things and thus they are not to blame. The same kind of people who call workers arrogant and say they should be thankful to employers and be put in their place through unemployment.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/the-viral-ceo-shows-the-tru...
account-5•48m ago
Monetarily I'm at the poor end of wealth, but I am content and want for little. This is also why I probably don't get the house size metric used here. My current, humble, abode is big enough for my needs. Given more money I don't see me upgrading.
What solutions will be worth exploring to solve current inequalities if we know it's not inevitable, given our current situation?