Acceptable inequalities

Jane Galt writes:

So many academics profess to be egalitarians, yet academia as a whole has produced one of the most radically inegalitarian societies to be seen since Louis XVI fled Versailles.

As a non-academic with egalitarian instincts, I see no paradox here. There are two features of academic inequalities which, in principle, make them much more acceptable than income inequalities, namely:
1. Academic success usually yields rewards which are confined to one sphere of justice, to use Michael Walzer's phrase. Success in business or the media, however, more often buys other rewards; it is tyrannical in Walzer's sense. The success of Bill Gates or Arnold Schwarzenegger has brought them more wealth and political power than the academic success of (say) Gary Becker. We egalitarians can tolerate inequalities as long as there are limits to the consequences of those inequalities.
2.  Academic inequalities arise from a more legitimate  process than business inequalities. The success that comes from peer review is more tolerable than the success that comes from office politics, rent-seeking and dumb luck. Many egalitarians (me for one) care about how inequalities arose, not about their mere existence.
Of course,  these differences are idealized. Arnold Kling says:

I think that the inequality of outcomes in business is greater than the inequality of talents. But I think that such differences are even worse in academic life.

If he's right - some concrete examples would be nice! - then Jane Galt's  complaint that " I [have not] experienced any other organisational culture, even in hyper-competitive consulting or investment banking, in which professional success is so readily confused with personal worth" would be even more powerful.
These caveats aside, I see no big hypocrisy in academics tolerating inequalities of academic merit more than they tolerate inequalities of income.
Another thing: Is my view here coloured by a difference between the UK and US? I suspect that, in the US, it is much more common for the brightest students to enter academic careers than it is in the UK. As a result, the best British academics are less likely to have great ability than the best US academics.

Comments

[Blimpish]

Remember there's also much greater freedom over pay-setting in US universities (at least, a lot of the top end ones) - didn't Barro pick up a Chair paying $400,000 a few years back? Plus, a lot of them offer free or discounted tuition for your children, which at an Ivy League school is the equivalent of a six figure sum.

[Arnold Kling]

Academics has managed to create a super high class--the tenured Ivy League professor; and a super low class--the adjunct professor. In terms of prestige--which is the locus of competition in academia--there is very little to be had outside the top schools. Academics is a pyramid with a small top and a large low base (with the adjuncts below the base, in the basement as it were).

In business, there is much more of a middle class (middle managers) and there is nothing in business that corresponds to the low status of the Ph.D adjunct--someone with lots of qualifications and no income or status.

[Glen]

In the US, I find the 'brightest' people tend to be drawn to the private sector while those who can just regurgitate information go into academia or the public sector. This is just a general observation based on my own experience. I know very bright people in academia and dullards in business and, even then, a lot of business people don't tend to follow up on things that aren't profitable. Also, one's own experience is limited and colored by one's world view.