American Inequality Didn’t Just Happen. It Was Created.

[finehoe]

American inequality didn't just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American "achievement." That outsize inequality is not predestined offers reason for hope, but in reality it is likely to get worse. The forces that have been at play in creating these outcomes are self-reinforcing.

America's current level of inequality is unusual. Compared with other countries and compared with what it was in the past even in the United States, it's unusually large, and it has been increasing unusually fast. It used to be said that watching for changes in inequality was like watching grass grow: it's hard to see the changes in any short span of time. But that's not true now.

http://evonomics.com/nobel-prize-economist-says-american-inequality-didnt-just-happen-it-was-created/

[spuwho]

Would you agree that these inequalities are most likely to appear during major economic transitions?

How many of these scions of inequality been able to hold on to said power or wealth?  Not very long it seems.

Eventually it dilutes and gets redistributed back to succeeding generations. Some may take a 100 years, some of them more.

I dont think its unique to the US. The British, Dutch, even the Count of Anjou can trace their amassed wealth to an economic transition of some kind they were able to leverage.

[finehoe]

Would you agree that these inequalities are most likely to appear during major economic transitions?

Not necessarily.  There was a massive economic transition after the Second World war, yet inequality lessened.

How many of these scions of inequality been able to hold on to said power or wealth?  Not very long it seems.  Eventually it dilutes and gets redistributed back to succeeding generations. Some may take a 100 years, some of them more.

Not really relevant.  The question is, why should the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation's wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%. Just because the individuals and/or families that make up that one percent may change, it doesn't mean this distribution is optimal for society.

I dont think its unique to the US. The British, Dutch, even the Count of Anjou can trace their amassed wealth to an economic transition of some kind they were able to leverage.

Yet the inequality is much greater in the US than the UK or the Netherlands.  Perhaps, as the article concludes, the successes of those at the top of the wealth distribution in the US shows that more than a small part of their genius resides in devising better ways of exploiting market power and other market imperfections—and, in many cases, finding better ways of ensuring that politics works for them rather than for society more generally.