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Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate
It is hard for me to follow your comment, as I think that you are conflating "income" with "wealth," and they aren't congruent.
In any event, I don't think that your comments in respect of purchasing power have any real bearing on the substance of the matter. I'm not saying that I disagree (or that I agree) with them, just that I think that they are a bit of a sideshow to the underlying debate.
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The point is that money is not just a force for buying and selling, it is a force of influence. When you have this huge amount of influence concentrated in a few people, they can basically bend and skew policy and, in some cases, real economic impactors to what is best for them. It's not democracy.
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In regard to some matters, I submit that the "will of the majority" is not how things should be decided.
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The only way this isn't a terrifying position is if you think that this influence is concentrated to the right people. IMO, people who have lived their lives in pursuit of profit above all else very rarely have the interest of anyone but themselves at heart.
You say "why live in a capitalist society if you don't believe you can be the other guy?" Without even getting into the fact that, barring some type of miracle invention, that it is borderline impossible to become "the other guy" I say, why live in a democracy if you're not going to adhere to the one basic principle of the thing, that will of the majority should guide the society? It's just straight up not democracy. And that's fine, if you want to live in a oligarchy, but don't pretend this is a democratic process. When you are actively acting against the interest of the many to benefit a few, how can you find that to be acceptable? You can either resign yourself to it "just being reality" or you can try to change what is the reality today to something different. Apathy is not an appropriate position on this IMO. It's fundamental to what our culture is supposed to be built on.