My point was that people want power any way they can get it, with a capitalist system it's much more about hard work than who you know, your name, your status essentially. Other systems simply trade one out for the other, as in, e.g. mostly who you know and less about how hard you work.

I am not arguing about wealth, I am arguing about hope, happiness, and fairness. If I work harder and receive more there is a form of symmetry work = money = food, shelter, happiness. On the other hand if work doesn't mean I receive more or I receive very little for my increased work, it changes the equation. The latter system supports not working that hard because that benefits you more than working hard.

Now, discussing directly the wealth gap, wealth is a sign of how hard you work, how intelligent you are, and in corrupt systems how many people you know. Thankfully, in a capitalist system since work translates into wealth you can often MINIMIZE the corruption, or at the very least its better than a system where a committee/laws redistributes wealth. My point there being, a fair distribution of wealth should be based off market pressures because it is more likely to be a fair distribution, sure that means some people lose, but those people are the ones who don't want to work, don't have the intelligence to make money and don't have friends to support them. In that case, they are free to join a church or local community center, which are also supported in capitalist nations.

All that being said, I don't actually feel that my claims are "bullshit," perhaps I misrepresented them, but there is evidence to support my argument... That would be the two schools of economics at the bottom of my original post.

However, this hypothetical loop you outline is clearly neglecting the hidden scaffolding of privilege and agency.

While it might seem perfectly logical as a theoretical standpoint, it also hides a tremendous complexity of “value”, something typical in hypercapitalist perspectives.

When reducto ad absurdum appropriates “value” to equivalency with “monetary wealth”, we might as well yield to Burger King slogans that allow us to experience “value” through a kid's meal.

Value of culture is obviously subjective. To use your example, I value a culture that can see the value of the populace. To feed a person without privilege or agency, and expect nothing in return, is not something that fits into your Utopian feedback loop.

One can only wonder how many other cultural values may not fit into the same loop.

“That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.”

You must not have seen a list of 1%ers lately.

On the other hand, some people had POWER. It didn't matter that they only had three times as much money as you and an apartment only twice as big as yours. They had to make only one phone call to get something they wanted while you, the simple wo/man had to stay in line from 4 a.m. in order to buy "luxury" products like milk.

... but "the wealth gap was smaller". So what?