1. Since the market's regulatory role is so effective, why do we still need the government's "visible hand"?
2. Will the wealth gap continue to widen indefinitely?

Question One

If there is only one person in society, then all transactions in that society are self-transactions, and all resource allocations are determined by that one person. In such a market, transaction costs are zero, and at this point, we do not need a government. The costs that exist in a society with more than one person, which do not exist in a "one-person society," are called transaction costs. For example, lawyer fees and litigation costs are transaction costs because in a one-person society, torts cannot occur at all.

In the real world, society consists of far more than one person. Transactions between people incur transaction costs, and sometimes these costs can be quite high. The allocation of resources may sometimes fail to achieve optimal configuration, at which point we need the government's visible hand to eliminate barriers and push resources toward optimal allocation.

Question Two

The rich have capital, while the poor have labor. Both capital and labor have their rates of return, and their marginal returns are not infinite. As spending increases, the returns on spending will eventually start to decline, ultimately reaching marginal equilibrium; the same logic applies to labor. The trend of "the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer" cannot continue indefinitely.

If "money can generate money" were perpetual, what we would need to do is simply pile all the money in the world together, and humanity would possess infinite wealth.

Regrettably, the other layer of meaning behind the "wealth gap" is actually the "strength gap." The strong often possess not only capital but also labor, not only intelligence but also execution ability. The heights that the strong can reach in their lifetime are largely determined by the level of technological tools available in society at that time. The more advanced the technology, the more progress society makes, the higher the heights the strong can achieve, and they can also pass this advantage on to the next generation, which I will not elaborate on further.