In 2013, the New Yorker's George Packer found that companies like Google and Facebook are full of people who fervently believe they are changing the world more effectively than any government can, and that it is entirely appropriate to become extremely rich by doing so. Packer found the phrase 'change the world' used constantly in these companies and among their backers, yet they were surrounded by (and oblivious to) levels of homelessness and poverty that had been unknown in San Francisco a couple of decades earlier.

Given the extreme discomfort and danger of coalmining work, it can seem extraordinary that people would fight so hard and suffer so much to preserve it--but perhaps it is no more extraordinary than the lengths dancers, musicians, writers and climbers will go to, to do what they have set their hearts on doing. It may seem odd to speak of coalminers in the same breath as ballet dancers and composers, but that may reflect more on the inequality of a society in which these different communities have so little mutual contact, than it does on the nature of their per se.

Robert Axelrod [...] found that for a social norm to become established [...] society must also and especially disapprove of those who fail to show their disapproval of the offending behavior. This second-order norm enforcement mechanism is called a 'metanorm'

Instead of confronting the problem of excess wealth, liberal-minded political groups usually focus on relieving poverty, perhaps by enforcing and raising minimum wages. But raised minimum wages are easily negated when earnings and wealth at the top explode, driving up the price of housing and further augmenting the power of interests that are inimical to things that support general welfare, such as public transport, schooling and healthcare. As wealth gaps widen, the poor rely more on credit, which further enriches the already wealth. Investment becomes increasingly focused on financial opportunities. The principle of inequality, unchallenged, becomes further entrenched.

The epidemiological evidence suggests that inequality is a bit like asbestos: it has no known 'safe level'. Why not ban it? Or why not at least discuss banning it, to draw out all the arguments pro and con? [...]

Elitism's defenders have often argued that inequality is needed to spur innovation. The evidence gathered by this book contradicts that. The story of computers and high technology, in particular, tells us that tolerating inequality becomes downright dangerous as technology gets more powerful. The idea that big rewards (or even any material reward at all) are helpful in any productive sense, has no support [...]

There is an objection which points out that absolute equality is not achievable. That has never stopped societies outlawing other intractable injustices such as rape, murder, apartheid or even slavery. All the great battles against injustice, in which modern societies take such pride, were considered unwinnable until, suddenly, they were won. And some of society's most mundane underpinnings depend on equally 'unachieveable' goals. Perfect verticality is a completely unachievable abstraction but it does not stop bricklayers continually checking that walls and lintels are as vertical and level as they can possibly be; we would never trust a bricklayer who did anything else [...]

Perfect verticality is a completely unachievable abstraction but it does not stop bricklayers continually checking that walls and lintels are as vertical and level as they can possibly be