Often missing from contemporary conversations about inequality are substantive considerations of relative vs. absolute poverty and the costs and benefits of economic liberalization to both nations and individuals. Though there are very good reasons to be concerned about economic inequality and its effects, economic liberalization (i.e., making markets freer from government planning and regulation) has not been uniformly negative.
In fact, it has led to remarkable economic growth across the globe that has (albeit, unequally) improved absolute living conditions for both the world’s poorest and wealthiest people.
Even though power, wealth, income, status, etc., are vastly unequal, as an empirical matter (unlike thoroughly falsified Marxist 'zero sum' speculation about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer), economic liberalization produces much greater wealth than centrally-planned systems by incentivizing investment and encouraging mutually beneficial, voluntary exchange that leaves each person materially better off than they were before.
In absolute terms, economic liberty allows both to get richer, but in relative terms it permits the rich to get way richer than the less rich. All Americans are "rich" and "privileged" by contemporary and historical world standards, but because some are much richer and more privileged than others, the less rich and less privileged often feelpoor, oppressed, and exploited. By any reasonable empirical standard, however, even descendants of historically oppressed groups objectively benefit from living in this remarkably prosperous and free country today.
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