Richest 1% will own more than all the rest by 2016

What is the difference between the market being "emergent" and being created by society?

Isn't "created by society" just code for a process that's happened without any one person planning it, over a long time, adding more and more rules to make the world like it is? That's sounds pretty "emergent" to me.

While a lot of people go the "buy a house" route, and make most of their investment gains from the house appreciating, others will put their money into e.g. the stock market and make their returns there.

Which part of this do you think "doesn't count" or has "nothing to do with hard work"?

If we were talking about only people who worked hard, put X% of each salary into the stock market, and ended up wealthy because their investments paid off, would that count as "getting rich from hard work"? Is your objecting specifically with the fact that their chosen investment was in a house?

Don't forget, buying a house is the same as putting money into a diversified stock portfolio in terms of work - they had to save X% of their salary to pay off a mortgage instead of putting it into the stock market, but effectually they worked the same amount and saved the same amount to end up at the same place. I don't think it's worth making a big point of difference over which exact vehicle they chose to put their investments in, as it obscures the point.

Note: I recommend the stock market instead of buying a house because, like parent says, investing in a house is more of a lottery.

Capitalism ain't perfect, far from it, but what we had here was a major clusterfck, no thank you. And what changed is move to open economy, call it capitalism if you want. With its own warts and issues, but much better overall.

Previous regime got the worst out of people, this at least tries to do the opposite.

The biggest differences in economic debates are not between people who have different viewpoints. The biggest differences are between people who have actually studied economics and know what they're talking about, and most people, who are saying things that don't make sense, and basing most of their arguments on misunderstandings and wishful thinking.

I find that just reading a lot of "real" economics from real economists will usually make everything you read much, much clearer, whether you come at it from the "left" or the "right". I also tend to find that most economists are significantly to the "right" of the standard populace, which would make it even better for your needs. (This could just be my biased reading habits, but I think not - I have other thoughts on the subject but they're not for now).

Now, how can you go about reading real economists? The best way is to actually study economics, which you can do either via online videos (plenty of them available) or reading a textbook. I recommend Mankiw's "Principles of Economics" textbook, it's very readable.

If you don't have the time/inclination for reading a whole textbook, the next best thing is to read more "introduction to economics" books. A few that I highly recommend:

1. Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell. Brilliant book, was my first introduction to real economics. Most people will say it's heavily biased to the "right", so could be good for your usecase, but keep it in mind.

2. Naked Economics - Charled Wheelan. A bit shorter and lighter than Sowell, but a great book. I think it's a lot more balanced.

3. Great Courses courses on economics (audiobooks). A good one to start with is "Economics" by Timothy Taylor.

After this you can dive deeper into specific questions/areas you care about, e.g. there are brilliant courses by the Great Courses on how the stock market works, etc. Very useful to know what's actually going on in the world.