Comment by nathan_compton
8 hours ago
If bothers me if he spends that money exerting an outsized influence on my political institutions, though. Wealth inequality isn't really about wealth so much as power. I really don't care if Musk or anyone else lives more comfortably than me, but I do care if they have more than one figurative vote in how my society functions.
But that does not address whether the wealth inequality in question causes despair (it almost certainly does not).
What makes you think wealth inequality doesn't cause despair? Despair strikes me as the expected and desired effect.
Hunger and struggling to pay one's bills -- those cause despair. Envy surely does not (and should not). And anyways the claim that relative wealth inequality (as opposed to actual poverty) causes despair is an extraordinary claim and it requires that you present extraordinary evidence.