My Quora answer on inequality

Inequality is one of the biggest issues facing society today, it can be a source of future unrest or wars, or political instability as people faced with desperate situations listen to the rhetoric of despots and dictators in a hope to improve their lot. The only solution postured by governments over the years has been to take money from people who have made it and re-distribute to those less fortunate and whilst this seems on the face of it to be quite simple, whenever it has been tried it has failed, it disenfranchises those who work hard and create value and it does nothing to improve the skills or life experiences of the recipients, infact you could argue it robs them of their self esteem and their experience of the full human experience. The big issue we need to tackle is equality of opportunity. So starting from basic education through to how small businesses can compete with larger global companies. Once the rules are the same for small business as they are for big, we can truly have a chance to democratise wealth. in most mature economies (US, Australia, Europe etc etc) small businesses account for 50% of GDP and 95% + of the private sector workforce and yet they pay more tax (unable to avoid like large multinationals) have inadequate banking facilities, payment processing etc and do not have access to capital this keeps them small and while they are small they cant win the big contracts, so the entrepreneurs face a glass ceiling. Remove this glass ceiling and you democratise wealth, and create a generation of inspirational role models. these entrepreneurs go on to become the change agents in society, solving the biggest problems we face. Without returning to meritocracy and an understanding that you get out what you put in, then yes we could well slip back into ‘tribal’ nationalistic protectionist regimes, and who knows a world war three, because history has taught us that when goods stop crossing borders troops do.