The full measure of inequality we see today is almost certainly not the sole result of differences in skills, education, intelligence, time preference and social capital. Monopolies in land, money, intellectual property and regulatory capture, all creations of state through legislation, executive orders, ordinances, and judicial rulings, have created the wide chasm between rich and poor, owners and renters, legal persons and natural persons. You cannot look at the two-tier justice system that gives corporations a slap on the wrist for crime a natural person would do time behind bars for and conclude that we live in a meritocracy, nor look at the legal fiction called intellectual property which is used to extract rents and price gouge consumers and conclude we are on a level playing field. Much of the so-called wealth of billionaires and the market cap of multinationals was, until recently, thanks in large part to the glut of cheap credit the Federal Reserve had flooded the equity and housing markets with since the 2008 recession. You cannot look at a monetary system that gives banksters new money first at the lowest rates and reimburses their reckless speculation with bailouts while actively working to put main street out of business and workers out of jobs, as it is now, and conclude that hard work and responsibility separates finance capitalists from run of the mill proles.