This is an important point, but can be stated directly, rather than bringing in the “ancestral environment” thing as justification.
“Status”—or, more concretely, power over others—corresponds a great deal in our (and probably every actualizable) society to wealth. A society with big wealth differentials is going to be one where some members wield great power over others; it’s not simply a question of differential consumption rights. I think this is basically motivates people to find wealth differentials unjust: as supporting evidence, consider that people don’t consider happiness differentials that can’t be translated into power differentials unjust—nobody thinks it unjust that Alice has a better native appreciation for classical music than Bob—and that the people who are most likely to consider huge wealth differentials just, libertarians, are the most likely to narrowly map power differentials to the exercise of physical force.
This is an important point, but can be stated directly, rather than bringing in the “ancestral environment” thing as justification.
“Status”—or, more concretely, power over others—corresponds a great deal in our (and probably every actualizable) society to wealth. A society with big wealth differentials is going to be one where some members wield great power over others; it’s not simply a question of differential consumption rights. I think this is basically motivates people to find wealth differentials unjust: as supporting evidence, consider that people don’t consider happiness differentials that can’t be translated into power differentials unjust—nobody thinks it unjust that Alice has a better native appreciation for classical music than Bob—and that the people who are most likely to consider huge wealth differentials just, libertarians, are the most likely to narrowly map power differentials to the exercise of physical force.