An interesting essay on the nature of income disparity. It tries to pass itself off as a piece on why income disparity is a good thing, but really only explains why it’s not a sign of antisocial activity like it the author claims it used to be.
Has a few gems in there though, like a great explanation why owning a $20 watch isn’t a sign of poverty, but owning a $100,000 watch is a sign of idiocy (I think his word was closer to status, but i’ll go with idiocy). Or the other effects of technology on spreading material conveniences.
“The only thing technology can’t cheapen is brand. Which is precisely why we hear ever more about it. Brand is the residue left as the substantive differences between rich and poor evaporate. But what label you have on your stuff is a much smaller matter than having it versus not having it. In 1900, if you kept a carriage, no one asked what year or brand it was. If you had one, you were rich. And if you weren’t rich, you took the omnibus or walked. Now even the poorest Americans drive cars, and it is only because we’re so well trained by advertising that we can even recognize the especially expensive ones.”

Still it’s a defense of lifestyles and societal choices gone horribly wrong-
“I have no trouble imagining that one person could be 100 times as productive as another.”
I think he’s confused ‘productive’ with other more appropriate words perhaps powerful, connected, influential, useful… but not productive.