Economic Inequality

Paul Graham argues that economic inequality should not be treated as a single phenomenon, because it has many causes, some harmful and some beneficial, such as tax loopholes and drug addiction on one side and the creation of new companies on the other. He writes that wealth from creating new companies is not taken from others, citing startup founders who would have joined big companies or become professors in 1960. He also argues that variation in productivity, driven by accelerating technology, is the irreducible core of inequality and that eliminating great variation in wealth would mean eliminating startups, which could simply move to other countries.