Plague of Inequality CHAPTER SIX John Stuart Mill “THE WIDENING BREACH”

Williams points to how Mill also pointed to the “… persistent threat of economic inequality …  In On Liberty, Mill expresses concern about an ‘ascendant class’ that broadly imposes its views of morality on the basis of its ‘class interests, and its feelings of superiority,’ sentiments born of ‘self-interest’ …  related concern in Utilitarianism insofar as he attempts to establish a ‘feeling of unity’ in moral communities (p. 202).” In DIT terms, Mill clearly saw the need to temper the pursuit of self-interest with the shared other-interest represented in moral and ethical communities.  Mill also saw how extreme inequality was also often served by and entrenched in the law, which meant the law was immoral and unethical. Such entrenchment could lead to “… inequalities of opportunity, status, and economic condition (which would) tend to erode feelings of sympathy that might otherwise unite citizens and to which they naturally incline … (leading to) rankling sense of injustice, which renders any approximation of feeling between the classes impossible (p. 203).” The law must be ethical, coming out of empathy-with the other going in every direction, as in empathy-based ethics.

Rich are Guilt of Gross Immorality

Mill “… characterized the rich as guilty of ‘gross immorality’ … (and) would leverage their fortunes and power for the ‘predominance of [their] private over public interests in the State (p. 203) … What emerges from a broad reading of Mill’s corpus is that extreme and entrenched economic inequality is among the most disruptive forces in the social and political world. This much he shares with Plato, Jesus, Hobbes, Rousseau, Smith, and Marx (p. 204).”   Seems Mill --- like the others in the list --- would also have been a MetaEcon.   Mill was all about finding “…measures aimed at diminishing the damaging effects of selfishness bred by inequality (p. 204).”

Williams points to the similarities with the earlier thinkers:  “Like Smith, Mill is hopeful that inequality can be managed in a market economy through education and an improvement of public morals. Like Plato, Mill thinks the transition to a better public morality will be slow and gradual. Like Jesus and the Mosaic tradition of Jubilee as well as Hobbes, Mill is open to radical redistribution of private wealth. Like Rousseau, Mill is interested in ways in which this transfer of wealth can be achieved through taxation. But Mill’s plan for educational reforms and wealth transfers are original in the details. His designs for the latter hinge significantly on ambitious estate tax reforms— (p. 204).” 

It was essential to disrupt the formation of dynasties, and the building of a class of the idle rich.   Mill also encouraged education more widely, but also moral (and ethical) education focused on tempering selfishness. Mill also saw the key role for worker owned cooperatives, giving ordinary people a stake in the property, all focused on what DIT would refer to as ways to achieve a more optimal inequality. Williams claims that Mill was all about liberty and utility, the latter also representing the shared utility with the other in a moral and ethical community.  Said moral and ethical community --- the shared other-interest --- was essential to liberty in the pursuit of self-interest.

Egalitarian on Economics and Inequalitarian on Politics

Williams also claims the Mill was quite egalitarian on economic matters and inegalitarian in political matters. On the latter, a strong, wise, ethical Government more in the frame of vertical power was needed, in that an unfettered democracy would lead to factions taking power.  Mill did not seem to see the problem with vertical power, which tends to be inherently unethical. Mill discounted such concerns, as the more highly educated and informed, supposedly ethical people would form the power base in the Government. Yet, Mill was also duly concerned with any kind of oligarchy --- wealth buying power --- being the mode in Government.

Extreme Inequality Described the Situation Especially Prior to 1780

Intriguingly, in that McCloskey points to 1780 as a turning point in such places as Britain, inequality was extreme:  “In 1780, the top 1 percent of the British population owned 60 percent of the nation’s financial property. The top 10 percent owned 90 percent. By 1900, the top 1 percent owned 70 percent, and the top 10 percent owned 92 percent of all British property. This inequality endured right up until World War I, when extraordinary circumstances compelled radical policy changes (pp. 206-207).”  The meritocracy doctrine  --- poor claimed without talent and lazy while the rich have the talent and do the hard work --- dominated.  It followed that the meritorious who had established private property rights dominated: “Property rights came to assume a quasi-religious status for Western citizens, independent of religious beliefs and regardless of how unequally it might have been distributed (p. 207).”  

Quoting Piketty, and contemporary research on extreme inequality,   “… meritocratic discourse generally glorifies the winners in the economic system while stigmatizing the losers for their supposed lack of merit, virtue, and diligence (p. 207).”  Yes. Wealth even by mere inheritance and luck is meritorious; being born poor means a lack of virtue and diligence, and, it is somehow deserved. The poor must work harder; the idle rich need not work at all, like in the frame of the recent “2025 Big Beautiful Bill (US budget bill)” put into play by the presumed meritorious Conservatives?  Again, what is the fact-content of contentions about merit?  What is the reality?

Working Hard is Key, But Not the Only Solution

Mill was “… sympathetic to the idea that those who worked harder than others likely deserved more for their efforts. But at the same time, he was dubious that the unequal distribution of wealth found in his own society even remotely corresponded with merit, efforts, and justice (p. 208).”  Yet, the disparity was huge, one commentator pointing to the docks in the Britain:  “Pass from the quay and warehouses to the courts and alleys that surround them, and the mind is as bewildered with the destitution of the one place as it is with the superabundance of the other (p. 209).”  Mill and, later, Karl Marx, were well of aware of the extreme inequality in play.

Really It Was the Need for Liberty That Made the Difference

Mill is attributed with making clear the very notion of liberty, which most simply meant any action that did not cause harm to the other.   Mill saw two threats, as represented in 1) overstepping of Government, especially in dictating morality, and 2) too much control from opinion and custom, in effect from unquestioned traditions which imposed conformity.  So, in DIT terms, it was way too much control in the form of heteronomy coming from both Government and the Community to force some path 0M, and not enough freedom to choose the best path 0Z, the path of homonomy.  Ordinary people needed liberty and freedom, not just freedom and liberty for the extremely wealthy.

Liberty meant the freedom to choose to sacrifice a bit of self-interest in moving away from path 0Z without being forced to move. Consistent with the McCloskey claim of the liberty and freedom for ordinary people to be involved in Innovism, it was such liberty that led to “… the experiments of ‘persons of genius,’ who must enjoy personal freedom to explore new thoughts, ideas, and lifestyles (p. 210).” Innovism depended upon widespread liberty and freedom for everyone, not just the wealthy.

People Had to be Free to Innovate

Williams points to how Mill “… celebrates individuals, particularly the ‘great geniuses,’ as ‘the salt of the earth,’ those who ‘set the example of more enlightened conduct…  (Mill) emphasizes that ‘it is essential that different persons should be allowed to lead different lives.’ Indeed, insofar as society forecloses this personal space to cultivate and develop one’s own personalities and talent, he calls it ‘despotism’ … (so, Mill) has been criticized for fostering a culture of excessive individualism and selfishness (p. 210).”   Well, as DIT makes clear, freedom to innovate on path 0G also needs attention to what works for the other, leading to a better path 0Z.  The efforts of the generous, the innovator, must not only be tested in the Market as related to incentive (as McCloskey claims) but also tested in the Community of shared other-interest, as in what is ethical (see Lynne 2025).

Far More Than Mere Self-Interest is at Play

Also, Mills was aware of the problems associated with self-interest only:  Williams quotes Mill:  “It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference … there is a need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others (p. 211).”  DIT interpretation: People need the liberty to pursue new ideas, new innovations on path 0G but keeping in mind it must ultimately be about something the reasoned other can go along with on a path 0Z. Also, McCloskey (see Lynne 2025) points to it --- Innovism being the “it” ---  being about the liberty of ordinary people, not just the wealthy elite supposedly stimulated by tax breaks and other incentives. 

People Do Not Just Max U of the Self-Interest

Mill was also skeptical of the Jeremy Bentham “max U” claim which keeps and otherwise justifies the person on path 0G.  Mill saw the key role of the moral community in tempering that path. Williams points to how Mill believed that “Insofar as citizens only think in selfish terms, they lower—literally 90 percent by Mill’s calculations—a community’s utility. Those acting on pure selfishness diminish their own capacity for pleasure and happiness, not to mention their neighbors (p. 212).”  Yes. DIT makes easy sense of it. 

Focusing only on path 0G --- the max U leading to mainly “I-utility” --- as Bentham wanted would assure substantive loss in the domain of shared other-interest, which using utility framing, is producing a kind of shared “We-utility” within each person--- lowered by 90 percent, Mill claimed.  The We-utility is dramatically lower --- again, perhaps 90 percent --- on path 0G than on a better path 0Z.  Mill wanted to transcend Bentham’s egoism, as in transcending path 0G and bringing path 0M into play on a better, empathy-influenced path 0Z.

Mill also wanted to solve the pushpin and poetry dilemma, --- solving the incommensurability problem --- easily accomplished with DIT.  Choices in Figure 2 space --- the place where balance is struck in the Market Forum & Other Forum, the money-value & non-money value forums --- recognize the monetized pushpin in balance with the non-money valued poetry at some best point B. It was not, to Mill, only about the money.

It is About Striking Good Balance in Self & Other-Interest

As confirmed in modern science & humanities research, Mill got it correct:  “Mill denies that selfishness is natural. He claims, to the contrary, that we have natural ‘social feelings’ and even a fundamental ‘desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures’ (p. 212).”    Mill would have been a MetaEcon, which sees the dual nature of Human nature.  People have both self & other (shared with the other)-interest, the latter about being in unity with fellow creatures, perhaps even going beyond just other Humans and pointing to sustaining natural Spaceship Earth systems, too. It is what evolution wrought. Accomplishing good balance in self & other-interest  (and, if utility is used to measure outcomes, balance in self U & other (shared) U, I-utility & We-utility)  would also result in solving the extreme inequality problem.

Modern Analysts --- Especially Mainstream Economists --- Often Downplay the Extreme Inequality Problem

The analysts downplaying extreme inequality as an issue claim it really is not as bad as it may appear, that just alarmists see a problem.  Also, the argument goes that everyone is generally wealthier because of economic growth, so extreme inequality is a non-problem.  Mill would disagree, and, using DIT, it is easy to support Mill.  A viable economic & social system operates on path 0Z which is a path of optimal not extreme inequality, a path that Mill intuitively understood as best. And, as made clear in DIT, while Mill saw the advantages of a Market system, the inherent tendency to extreme inequality was not one of said advantages. One had to look at not only the economic, but also the social, moral, ethical, and political consequences of extreme inequality.

Mill was convinced that capitalism as the basis of the Market would always at best pay survival wages.  The poor would barely eat, say nothing of living a healthy, happy life.  It was assured by competition among the capitalists. As a case in point: At the time Mill was writing, adulterated food --- using such things as soap and sawdust --- was commonly sold to the poor, assuring ill health.  At best, the poor were absolutely dependent upon powerful capitalists who were prone to not care about the poor, and looking only to minimize wages to the subsistence level.  It was a way – the capitalists believed, and seemingly often still believe --- to keep people working hard, even when not fed well and in poor health. It was believed necessary to keep the poor uneducated, too, as it kept wages down.  If every day the poor focus is only on just staying alive, there is no time or wealth available for becoming educated.  Innovism (again, a term from the work by McCloskey) would also suffer, as any resident talent among the poor would never come into play. Mill simply wanted wages to be at a level that at least provided for basic food and health needs, and the poor afforded time to become educated, made impossible with extreme inequality. 

Mill also saw extreme inequality causing problems for the rich, especially in leading to the mental disturbance of pleonexia --- obsession with the accumulation of wealth --- which assured unhappiness. As Mill said it:  ‘A spoiled child is always dissatisfied. No spoiled child has all that it asks for, and the more [that] is bestowed, the more it is indignant that anything should be withheld. Distressed they are, for they never have so much money as they would like to have’ (p. 217).  Spoiled children operate on a path 0G close to the vertical axis, never maturing beyond the 2-year old ego-only frame of mind. As Williams reads Mill “… the condition of pleonexia would be irrational and immoral in the strictest sense—namely, the rich conspire against their own happiness (p. 217).”  Extreme inequality brings perverse consequences to both rich and poor.

Extreme Inequality Demoralizes Both Individuals and the Community/Government

The demoralization of extreme inequality came on several fronts. First “… it made the conduct of the government an example of gross public immorality …” because private interests were served over the shared public interest. Second, it concentrated political power in the hands of the few, as wealth bought power. Overall, it was the flawed character of the rich at play, leading to destruction on many fronts. And, while Mill celebrated individualism, it had to be tempered. Mill did not “ … embrace … uncouth selfishness.. (and while good to encourage individualism) ... it is socially destructive to be selfish (p. 219).” Mill favored path 0Z not the uncouth path 0G. Fraternity  --- a sense of shared other-interest on some path 0Z --- played in Mill’s thinking.

Extreme inequality was a severe impediment to fraternity, and as also understood by Plato, Locke and Adam Smith, it was a “significant barrier to experiencing sympathetic feelings for fellow citizens… (so, it also) …undermines the kind of moral community that characterizes healthy societies (p. 220).” Yes. DIT clarifies the moral community arises from empathy-with the other in forming the shared other-interest, the ethic of optimal inequality.  Mill believed it could be solved with education about the downfalls of selfishness, and the need to temper it with the shared interest.

Law was Used Perniciously by the Rich to Preserve Extreme Inequality

Extreme wealth led to extreme power. Said power led to turning the law into something favoring the rich rather than the poor.  As Williams makes clear, Mill fully understood that “money is power, and the most efficient way to exercise that power is to influence or shape legislation … the wealthy use said … power in the interest of their own selfishness’ (pp. 221-222).” Oligarchical Government was to be avoided. Also, the poor are watching: And, if given any chance, also turn the learned selfishness on the rich.  Excesses are to be tempered in all people, as Metaeconomics makes clear (see Lynne 2020).

Inequality Means Injustice

Mill “… stresses the main source of poverty is neither laziness nor a lack of intelligence but rather the ‘accident of birth’ — that the poor do not deserve their poverty (p. 223).”  So, it is unjust to not give the poor the opportunity to climb up the income and wealth ladder. Inheritance taxes need to be high and substantive, serving to help level the field every so often. Being born into wealth has nothing to do with merit, and is not inherently deserved. Merit and desert does not justify the injustice of extreme inequality.

The other injustice is partiality, as in legislation and law favoring the rich over the poor. The wealthy become the powerful ruling class, and tilt the law in favor of said class.

Extreme inequality in wealth would also lead to all other kinds of problems, like not being treated fairly.  Sexism and other kinds of discrimination could also arise, all unjust. And, the most unjust of all “one law for the rich, and another for the poor” (p. 225).  Equal treatment under the law --- well, the wealthy could and still do hire more expensive lawyers and upset the process. Such inequality leads to all manner of social tension, and a less than best path 0Z. It runs counter to cohesion among members of the larger society.

Mutual Sympathy is Essential

As Williams points out, Mill saw “Stable, happy, and thriving political societies need citizens who enjoy mutual sympathy—they have common interests and understand that the common good takes precedence over self-interest … thriving communities require that people consult the public good and not their individual self-concern (p. 227).”  Yes. Thriving people and communities must pay attention to both path 0G and path 0M, and strike good balance on path 0Z.  One needed to cultivate “fellow-feeling across classes (p. 228).” As DIT clarifies, it is about cultivating a shared other-interest in some path 0M.

It would all be helped by better compensation, paying more downstream, like optimal inequality makes clear:  “The rich … do not enjoy an appreciably better life with the money that they could be paying their workers. But they nevertheless hoard the money despite the fact that their employees would doubtless gain far greater pleasure from the same money, as a would-be utility monster … (p. 229).” Everyone gains from optimal inequality.

Government Can Help

It was essential to avoid a bad Government, which was a “… government for the few, to the injury of the many (p. 229).”  The law developed within and enforced by the Government had a huge effect on causing extreme inequality, and should instead be used to temper it. Serious inquiry using science & humanities (especially ethics) was needed to look into what would make for the best set of laws.  And, a key part was law to give enfranchisement to different gender and racial groups, e.g., in the suffrage --- the right to vote among many other natural rights --- given and guaranteed to both women and people of different racial groups over time. The poor also needed to have some power to influence the law, on the way to influencing economic outcomes.

Extreme Inequality Would Not be Solved With Charity

Mill fully understood the reality that “… it was not enough simply to engage in individual acts of charity, benevolence, or kindness (p. 232).”  Far more effort was needed as framed by the shared other-interest represented in Community: Government, as DIT frames it.  That is, the Community of shared interest in optimal inequality required the community being represented in an inclusive government.

It would also be undesirable to go toward complete equality.   Mill fully understood the need for incentive:  Quoting Mill: “.. ‘a state of complete equality of fortunes would not be favourable to active exertion for the increase of wealth’ … the possibility of acquiring distinction—in wealth but also in realms like talent, knowledge, and virtue, according to Mill—is a positive stimulus in economies that need to grow. Complete equality would eliminate the motive of citizens to industry, which he views as necessary in growing economies (pp. 232-233).” Yes. As DIT makes clear, the attention shifts to adequate incentive without building excessive resentment.

Charity would never serve either domain of interest as charity takes away from incentive and never is enough to reduce resentment. So, an inclusive Government represented in an inclusive democracy styled Government was essential. And, while charity had a role, it was Government that had to address and seek optimal inequality, representing the community-wide shared interest in that outcome.

Substantive Estate Taxes Were Key

Large inheritances bringing about the idle rich had to be avoided. And while children of the wealthy were entitled to a “fair chance” of a “successful life” --- the excessive transfer of wealth had to be slowed with substantive estate taxes. As Mill correctly saw it, extreme inequality  “… fostered by inheritances inflames selfishness, indolence, class tensions, and class legislation (p. 235).” The estate tax was to be used to only allow for “the means of a comfortable independence” of the people enjoying the inheritance, nothing more. And, it was justice to have the higher tax, because the people had not earned it. The excesses in the inheritance were “ necessary only for ‘ostentation,’ ‘vanity,’, and the 'improper power' that large fortunes often seek to exercise. Society is hindered, rather than advanced, by such accumulations of wealth. But if that wealth were instead broadly distributed or ‘devoted to public uses…’ (p. 236)” conditions would improve for everyone, rich and poor.

Birth Control and Self-Control Were Also Essential

Excesses of all kinds needed to be tempered, including the excesses of procreation. And, it was not just self-control among the poor:  “… the rich, sensing perhaps how a large working-class population serves their own self-interest in the form of lower compensation for their employees, have also taken up the cause of promoting greater reproduction among the poor…(p. 238).” It keeps wages low, and more profit can be earned by the capitalists.  So, the matter of moving to a stable population and a stable work force was in the shared interest (with the other) of both rich and poor.

Mill Believed Selfishness Could be Tempered with Moral Education

To Mill, the “… selfish citizen ‘never thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to be pursued jointly with others, but only in competition with them, and in some measure at their expense’ (p. 239.”  So, it was about education to help said selfish citizen to think differently, think about path 0M not just path 0G.  As DIT clarifies, Mill perhaps did not put enough attention to the primal nature of selfishness on path 0G. yet, Mill did recognizd the capacity for empathy-with on path 0M which was denied by both Hobbes and Benthem (and is built into modern SIT in Microeconomics, taught as a fact in the typical Econ 101 course). Mill believed education could cultivate the sentiments. Mill believed citizens had “… the capacity to act on behalf of ‘public and social purposes’ (p. 240.” It was simply about educating said citizens to bring it forward. In effect, it was about moral education, to bring the Ethic into play to temper the Incentive.

As Williams highlights, “Mill refuses to let any child’s life go to waste, whether it is an ignorant father standing in the way of his child’s education or a family’s poverty. Each child deserves an education, and society will benefit from the otherwise undiscovered talents of its poorer children, who may become great intellectuals, citizens, and leaders (pp. 242-243).”  Diverse kinds of education were to be available to all, as in experiments in education. Intriguingly, Mill was not in favor of standardized public education for all, but rather diverse educational opportunities and experiments in education for all.

Mill Also Saw a Role for Religion, Especially the Teachings of Jesus

The danger was that religions tended to stir selfish motives.   Rather, religious were to be (Williams quotes Mill)  “grounded on large and wise views of the good of the whole (p. 243).” It seems religions were to focus on empathy-with the other, and toning down the self-interest. It was about a religion that would “… substitute fears of divine sanctions with aspirations for the approval of both the living and dead—including ancestors, friends, and the moral heroes of the past, such as Socrates, Jesus, Antonius, and even George Washington (p. 243).”  It was to be about pointing to the good and ethical people who had come before, not some fear of retribution in hell for not doing the ethical thing now.  Religion was to be about building “… a common-good orientation … (p. 243).”   DIT would say: It is about building a shared other-interest that works for everyone, an Ethic put into play. Jesus tried to nudge empathy-with the other, tried to nudge people to develop and act on the evolved capacity in each person for empathy, the first step on the way to sympathy and compassion.

Worker Cooperatives

Mill fully understood the role of owning private property, and the need to avoid moving to a system where a few owned the bulk of it.  It was, rather, about striking good balance in common (public) and private property: Think of a continuum for all public (common) property at one extreme to all private property at the other extreme.  Extreme forms of socialism as communism favor the all public property extreme while extreme forms of capitalism favor the all private property extreme.  As DIT make clear, a balance must be struck, as in private & public property (see Lynne 2020).

Owning property among the laboring class would help the avoid the extreme inequality that comes with concentrating ownership in the hands of a few capitalists.  Mill liked worker  cooperatives, where labor owned part of the company, and profit sharing not only gave incentive but produced more reasoned, optimal inequality at the end of each production period. Mill saw such cooperatives as a way to “… transcend the ‘narrow selfishness’ that dominate laborers at other companies and create greater ‘social sympathies’ (pp. 246-247).”  In DIT terms, attention shifted away from path 0G of selfishness only  toward the shared interest of path 0M, but not completely: It tempered the selfishness, not taking it away (Incentive still mattered), giving rise to the more reasoned (and Ethical) path 0Z.

Mill was all in on the cooperative movement, because it “… (1) educates workers in how to run their own economic affairs, (2) respects their freedom and independence, (3) increases productivity, (4) reduces selfishness and promotes community sentiment, (5) reduces workplace and societal hostility between the working class and the capitalists by merging the classes, and (6) reduces inequality (p. 248).”

Enclosure and the Move to Private Property Had to Be Tempered

Mill saw the possibility to improve conditions for the poor in Britain by emigration to the colonies, and the opportunity to attain a piece of private land.  Mill also wanted the British Government to not only take the common (public) land --- from where the commoner came --- and give it to the wealthy but also to give small tracts to poor people, for their cultivation and use.   

Stationary and Sustainable Economy, Not an Ever Growing Economy

Adam Smith had pointed to the growing economy as the main solution to poverty.  Problem is, a growing economy does not solve the extreme inequality, the plague of inequality problem --- albeit perhaps helps the poor in an absolute sense.  It does not solve the relative income, relative wealth problem which leads to all manner of difficulties in sustaining an viable and humane system.  Mill saw that problem, and, also, saw the need to perhaps temper the growth such as to sustain the Spaceship Earth on which the Travelers on it depend for sustenance.  Mill did not favor continued growth, anticipating the need for a more stationary and sustainable state of the economy. 

Conclusions

Mill claimed “… ‘it is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object: in those most advanced, what is economically needed is a better distribution.’(p 253).”  So, continued growth is not the solution in the developed world, with the supposed trickle-down and everybody’s boat is lifted notion.

Williams notes how “Mill anticipates that progress toward greater equality advances utility ‘in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being’ … Given that ‘a person ‘who cares for other people, for his country, or for mankind, is a happier man than one who does not’ … selfishness and inequality tend to conspire against human happiness (p. 254).”  So, using DIT, shared other-interest plays an ever larger role in the developed economies.

Intriguingly, Mill believed  “… it is possible that communism might work ‘at some future time’ when humanity is ready … What would this take? Mill answers, it ‘requires a high standard of both moral and intellectual education in all the members of the community’  By ‘moral’ he means that people need to learn to do their work honestly and energetically (p. 254).”  Well, perhaps.  DIT suggests it is instead about striking good balance along the continuum from pure communism to pure capitalism, from all public property to all private property.  It is not likely that either pure communism or pure capitalism could ever work.

Mill did not like the notion of redistribution… rather focusing on  such things as:  “The steep inheritance tax involves taking the money only from deceased citizens rather than from living ones. The reformed enclosure laws include compensation for landowners. Worker cooperatives raise their own capital and seek to supplant traditional bourgeois-funded industries only by providing a superior business model, not by seizing bourgeois assets (p. 255).”   DIT makes sense of the contention: The matter of distribution compatible with optimal inequality is more about avoiding the need to re-distribute after the fact. It is about focusing instead on empathy-with based compensation up and down the income and wealth ladder, avoiding the extremes.