LettersBeyond the wealth gap: Hong Kong must first secure basic living standards

Readers discuss why addressing wealth disparities may be missing the point, Hong Kong’s harbourfront ambitions, and how Singapore’s education system caters to late bloomers

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Hong Kong’s skyline, as seen from the city’s Tsuen Wan district on June 15. As long as absolute living standards are dignified, peaceful and secure, extreme relative wealth disparities are acceptable. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:30am, 29 Jun 2026

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Your report, “Hong Kong is world’s most unequal society for wealth distribution, study finds” (June 25) highlights a study revealing that Hong Kong’s wealth disparities have shifted from wage differences to extreme capital concentration. While this sounds alarming, a strong counter-argument exists: measuring a society’s health purely through wealth gaps is fundamentally flawed.

This perspective, known philosophically as “sufficientarianism”, argues that social welfare should be judged by the “floor” rather than the “ceiling”. After a certain point, wealth becomes an abstract number with diminishing marginal utility; an ultra-rich individual simply cannot exponentially consume more basic goods. Probably in corrupt societies, they can wield more power and influence. Hong Kong has the Independent Commission Against Corruption to deal with that.

Therefore, if a government ensures its residents can afford safe and high-quality food, shelter, healthcare and education, a massive gap between the average citizen and a billionaire does not inherently equate to societal failure.