The problem with a statement such as:
is that all results of capitalism is the result of the fiscal policies of the government and there is nothing natural about any possible result.
It's the natural result of people having differing approaches to money.
Over time the savers will well outpace the spenders. That's not government policy.
And consider Israel--it started with near equality. Now less than three generations later we see the same sort of distribution as everywhere else.
Israel has nearly the same average wealth as the median wealth. #19 and #20, that is almost exact equity.
Your statement about different approaches to money and savers out pacing spenders has no real explanatory force as to why the differences are due to something other than government policies. It approaches babble. What different approaches to money?
Some of these countries don't intentionally suppress wages by suppressing unions the way that we do, for example. Does this affect the income distribution? I say that it does. Is it government policy in the US to suppress the power of the unions, to make it harder for the unions to gain shops? I say that it is. What say you?
I lived and worked in Germany. They have government policies in place to negotiate wage rates for entire industries to establish the same wage rates for the same workers in all of the competing companies in the country. Does this result in higher wages in Germany for workers and less income and wealth inequity? I say that it does. What say you
The German retirement system is set up to provide retirees with an average of 60% of their working wage. This compares to Social Security providing an average of about 25%. Does this lower income and wealth inequity in Germany? I say that it does. Not only does it provide more money but Germans retire much earlier than Americans by nearly four years. Does this help to lower the income and the wealth inequity in Germany? I say that it does, the fewer years of work means that younger workers are promoted faster and they earn more at a younger age relatively compared to Americans.
Can you provide the same type of specificity for your "natural result of people having different approaches to money?" Or are we going to just have to accept that you have a low burden of proof for support for your biases?
And what about the question of the explanations that we hear from conservatives justifying the current high level of income and wealth inequity. They tell us that it is because of structural changes in capitalism over the last thirty years, not because of the government policies that were intended to work by increasing the income and the wealth inequity. Do you believe that these explanations are valid? Are there structural changes in capitalism as they say? Structural changes that apparently only affect capitalism in the US and Sweden? (I don't know anything about Sweden. I am pretty familiar with the US, Canada and Germany. I lived and worked in those countries for extended lengths of time.) They tell us that these structural changes include education, globalization, etc.
Let me ask you this. Do you think that in general that government economic policies can affect the income distribution of a country?
If so why do you believe that government policies aren't the explanation for the different income and wealth distributions in these 20 countries? It goes without saying that they have different fiscal policies. Feel free to use my examples from Germany of policies that are different from the US's policies to explain why these differences won't result in different income distributions. At least compared to the and wealth distribution warping power of, how did you put it, "differing approaches to money."
If you don't believe that the economic fiscal policies of a country can affect the income distribution of a country then can you explain conservatives enthusiasm for supply side economics thirty years ago? These policies relied on changing the US's income distribution in order to work, which you don't believe that they did, right?