I think the reason the question is so contentious is because it is a red herring. It assumes three incorrect assumptions: 1. The idea that success is based on individual merit - a pat concept that allows one to ignore the extreme complexity of humanity and the negligible impacts of individual action; 2. The comparison of two extreme ends of a bell curve rather than the functioning middle 3. That the money held by the rich has either left the system or is not useful to the poor. This last one is perhaps the least understood because few people understand finance. In reality, you need $100 million before the bank will lend you $100 million to build the building that the bottom percentile rent apartments in or the factory they work in. There is no way for those people to build the building themselves, either financially or organizationally. (When was the last time a unionized workforce built the apparatus it unionized?). Thus the concentration of wealth is not a benefit but a requirement for society to function, concentrated in the systems (say a company) most able to achieve it, led by an individual (heirarchically more efficient than a committee) who ultimately holds the asset (in name) which in turn functions for everyone else.