The persistence of wealth inequality, in turn, depends on many people working together to recognize and enforce individual claims on private property.
Hmmm, this feels wrong to me. In a hypothetical where it is NOT the case that many people work together to recognize and enforce individual claims on private property… is the outcome wealth equality? I don’t think so, I think the outcome is something more like totalitarian dystopia and/or apocalyptic anarchy, and in both I think it would be fair to say there is wealth inequality (the ruling class in the dystopia, the strong men in the anarchy).
I think of power as distinct from wealth, though both are often signaled through privileged access to scarce resources. Someone standing next to, or even physically possessing, a big hunk of gold, is not necessarily understood to be rich; Scrooge McDuck does not have the same relationship to the gold coins he comes into contact with as a museum curator handling a gold artifact, a gold miner actively extracting gold, or a security guard transporting gold. We think someone’s rich when they own a lot of scarce resources, i.e. have some recognized right to it that they can reasonably expect others to defer to.
The relation of Scrooge McDuck to his gigantic vault of gold also differs fundamentally from the relation of the current winner of “King of the Mountain” to whatever sort of hill they’re standing on. The latter must constantly defend their position, and has no claim on it aside from the efficacy of that defense, so there’s less of an abstract, recognized relation to the possession itself, and more of a direct relation to the other people around, which can sometimes be parlayed into compelling them to guard treasures or territory.
In other words, wealth is the sort of thing that’s at least potentially a convergent solution to the problems of multiple independent agents, rationally adjudicable by a neutral third party, while power involves being inside someone else’s OODA loop and subverting their independent agency. Related: Civil Law and Political Drama
Hmmm, this feels wrong to me. In a hypothetical where it is NOT the case that many people work together to recognize and enforce individual claims on private property… is the outcome wealth equality? I don’t think so, I think the outcome is something more like totalitarian dystopia and/or apocalyptic anarchy, and in both I think it would be fair to say there is wealth inequality (the ruling class in the dystopia, the strong men in the anarchy).
I think of power as distinct from wealth, though both are often signaled through privileged access to scarce resources. Someone standing next to, or even physically possessing, a big hunk of gold, is not necessarily understood to be rich; Scrooge McDuck does not have the same relationship to the gold coins he comes into contact with as a museum curator handling a gold artifact, a gold miner actively extracting gold, or a security guard transporting gold. We think someone’s rich when they own a lot of scarce resources, i.e. have some recognized right to it that they can reasonably expect others to defer to.
The relation of Scrooge McDuck to his gigantic vault of gold also differs fundamentally from the relation of the current winner of “King of the Mountain” to whatever sort of hill they’re standing on. The latter must constantly defend their position, and has no claim on it aside from the efficacy of that defense, so there’s less of an abstract, recognized relation to the possession itself, and more of a direct relation to the other people around, which can sometimes be parlayed into compelling them to guard treasures or territory.
In other words, wealth is the sort of thing that’s at least potentially a convergent solution to the problems of multiple independent agents, rationally adjudicable by a neutral third party, while power involves being inside someone else’s OODA loop and subverting their independent agency. Related: Civil Law and Political Drama