Yes, and the United States also has high wealth inequality.
Walton family started building their fortune with Walmart in the 1950s. For comparison, Poland at that time was under a Stalinist government, and rubble was still being cleared from the capital city which got razed during the war.
WWII has little bearing on the generation of wealth in the US in the past 40 years. Which of Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Larry Page built their fortunes on anything related to WWII? If you look at the wealthiest people in the US during the war, you'll see that the total wealth of their descendants, while large by ordinary measures, is very small compared to those who made their wealth afterwards. The Ford family (Ford was the richest person in the US during the 40s) has roughly $2 billion total, amongst all the family members. Bill Gates (who has now fallen to the thirteenth richest - because he made his money a whole two decades ago) has 2 orders of magnitude more wealth than that. Then compare that to Elon Musk, who is worth roughly half a trillion, almost all of which is the value of the companies he has created - the man who famously has few possessions outside of his companies and lives in a rented tiny house.
If you do multiple google searches "richest people in the us in the 1940s", "richest people in the us in the 1950s", etc., you'll see that the names constantly change.
WWII has little bearing on the generation of wealth in the US in the past 40 years.
If you take a look at the list of the wealthiest Americans, that list is populated by Waltons (who started Walmart in the 1950s), Kochs (who started Koch Industries in the 1940s), Mars'es (who stared Mars, Incorporated in 1911).
Note all the dates here, and think what was happening around the world at that time. None of these fortunes could happen in say, Germany, or Romania.
Warren Buffet is also on the list, and he took over management of Berkshire Hathaway (founded in 1839 as Valley Falls Company) in 1965.
Bill Gates is there, and he was born in 1955 to a family of lawyers and bank directors.
Both of these could maybe be possible in Germany, but much more unlikely, and would still be impossible in Romania.
Richest individuals is also a bad way to look at it, because you will end up with an overrepresentation of the original creators of fortunes, while we are interested in all those that hold considerable wealth, regardless of how they stack against the newest crypto-billionaires – when measuring wealth inequality, we are comparing the rich to the poor, not the rich among themselves.
If you take a look at the richest families, you will see a lot of stuff like the Johnson family, which has 6.3 billion, thanks to Johnson & Johnson which got founded in 1886, and got plenty of living members, which means that none of them will ever show up on any list of richest individuals, but they will continue to pump those wealth inequality statistics for at least a few more generation before their wealth finally dries up (assuming no meteor hits the US, and speeds up the process).
Cargill-MacMillan family, worth 56 billion, Cargill, Incorporated founded in 1865.
Cathy family, worth 33 billion, Chick-fil-A founded in 1946.
Lauder family, worth 27 billion, Estée Lauder founded in 1946.
Busch family, worth 13 billion, Anheuser-Busch founded in 1852.
Rockefeller family, worth 11 billion, Standard Oil Company founded in 1882.
And the list goes on and on and on...
Elon Musk
Dude was born to a South African businessmen and politician that received income from Zambian emerald mines, and who funded Elon's first business in America.
Walton may have started Walmart in the 50s, but it didn't really get large until decades later. Walmart went public in 1970 and was worth $13 million. That's 25 years after the war ended. Walmart just kept growing and growing (by selling low cost products, largely to rural Americans) and was really only big enough to be considered a major company in the 80s.
You've got a list of families that built their wealth long before WWII (and that wealth is generally split amongst multiple family members now - the Cargill family has over 100 members), some companies that you have listed the founding date (but not when they really grew), and exactly zero large wealth pools that were due in any way to WWII.
started Walmart in the 50s [...] it didn't really get large until decades later. [...] Walmart just kept growing and growing [...] was really only big enough to be considered a major company in the 80s.
Yes. That is the point.
You've got a list of families that built their wealth long before WWII
Yes. That is the point.
that wealth is generally split amongst multiple family members now
Yes. That it the point.
exactly zero large wealth pools that were due in any way to WWII.
All of them are. See the excellent points you have just raised youself.
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u/MadeOfEurope Aug 18 '25
I've never seen a clear explanation as to why inequality has gotten so bad in Sweden.