The Wealth Gap is a situation wherein a small minority of the people control or own the vast majority of the wealth. This wealth gap is reflected both in the distribution of assets as well as the distribution of income. The laws of nature do not support the equal distribution of wealth. Some people are naturally more talented and hard-working as compared to others and therefore will have more wealth. That is just an accepted norm. However, the wealth gap refers to systematic corruption which stacks the odds in the favor of the rich.
This means that the same rules do not apply to everybody. The rich play by a different set of rules than the poor and as a result, it is highly unlikely that people born rich will become poor and vice versa. It is true that quite a lot of people are self-made millionaires and billionaires. However, the odds are really dismal. Probability states that most of the people will die in the same economic class that they were born into. We feed this issue by participating in everyday consumerism and ignoring local businesses.
A famous Italian economist called Pareto once coined the 80/20 rule. He said that the rule applied to a lot of things and one of those things was income inequality. He stated that 80% of the world’s wealth has always resided in the hands of 20% of its population. This left the common man flabbergasted and fuming as they thought that such distribution was unfair. If those people were to see the statistics of today, they would certainly resort to rioting. Consider the fact that that top 1% of the world’s population owns more than 50% of the resources! It is like Pareto’s principle but on steroids.
Who’s to blame? Amazon? Bezos? Not really… it’s us. The public. There’s nothing wrong with Amazon. They catered to all the world’s needs. We gave them money for that. Possibly too much money. This is where it is important to understand our part in the economy. We are not bystanders of this wealth gap, we are the creators