(* But when the ISP starts making money, the owner would keep writing himself a bigger check instead of sharing the wealth or using the money to expand the business.... *)

That is his perrogative. He did not even have to *start* the business to begin with. What if he did not even start the biz? Think about that potential time-space path?

(* This is just one example about how trickle-down does not work. *)

It is less than perfect. But socialism generally does not seem to work very well either. If you don't like the system here, there are plenty of European countries with governments who work pretty hard to try to even things out: Everybody is equally poor and equally unemployed. There are 200+ companies. ONE of them is bound to be fairly close to your preferred level of forced equality. If not, then perhaps your expectations are not realistic.

(* That is a luagh, most peons live paycheck to paycheck paying off their bills *)

So they can pay for their cable TV, Mustangs, hotdogs, and lottery tickets. It is fairly easy to live cheap if you do things like buy bulk grain instead of processed food, shop for used clothes, take the bus, don't subscribe to cable TV, etc., and keep the phone calls down. Buying bulk grains, each meal can be around 50 cents per person! You DON'T have to pay $5 per meal to eat well (healthy).

You *don't* need cable TV to survive and only minimal phone. I am NOT saying that such a life is grand, but you can live healthy and *physically* comfortable at or below the poverty level if you simply swallow some pride, piss on local esthetics, and resist the tempations of capitalism like cell phones, rented movies, pizza delivery, etc. The biggest issues are *psychological* rather than physical.