A closely related and very relevant question is whether society C, where economic incentives and politics ensure that everyone has at least 2000 wealth somethings and some people only have 500,000 wealth somethings, is better than Society A.
I think you and others in this thread are arguing a moot point. Certainly it's relevant that the median human lives a better life today than 50 years ago, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether today's income inequality is a bad thing or whether extreme income inequality makes many people's lives worse than they would be otherwise.
By capping incomes/ownership to 500,000 wealth somethings, you discourage the creation of productivity required to supply the extra 1000 wealth somethings to everyone, as required to transition from scenario A to C. By penalizing anyone making/having more than that cap, nobody has incentive to create another 500,000 (or even just 1) more wealth somethings which would, at some point, would be transferred to others anyway. In practice, such capping tends to turn scenario A into B because not only is anyone discouraged from producing more than a certain amount of value, what manifestations of wealth which exist decay and are eventually destroyed without sufficient resupply for the whole society; as wealth is consumed/decayed/destroyed, and productivity is effectively punished, the majority increasingly vote for forced redistribution of what remains, leading to stabilizing at 50 per person.
Wealth somethings don't just grow on trees, ya know. They don't last indefinitely either, much less increase commensurate with population growth & needs despite lack of sufficient incentive to create them.
> I think you and others in this thread are arguing a moot point.
I didn't think I was arguing any point beyond the fact that inequality in and of itself is not necessarily bad, and that absolute levels of wealth count for something too. I have no idea what the optimal levels of those things are, nor how best to achieve them.
What's going on in this thread is people saying, "Thank goodness we aren't Society B, Society A really is better". I don't think anyone would prefer A over C, but A is clearly attainable and we are getting there- so let's celebrate our victories moving towards A, where everyone has enough, and then worry about getting to C instead of trying to take a shortcut. Because the benefits of everyone having enough are much higher priority than everyone having the same.
I think you and others in this thread are arguing a moot point. Certainly it's relevant that the median human lives a better life today than 50 years ago, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether today's income inequality is a bad thing or whether extreme income inequality makes many people's lives worse than they would be otherwise.