Most of the extreme disparities in wealth really come from people being lucky - born in the right place and time, given the right education, inheriting wealth and a good start in life, just plain getting lucky. The free-market based systems magnify that luck with more access to opportunities for wealth.

What would work better was a balanced system that recognised the justice shortcomings of market based systems and balanced them against the need for incentives for the good of society. Redistribution is required to even make the theoretical models underlying free trade or free markets work.