There certainly are a lot of angry people in the upper crust today.Dangerously (fatally?) many would say with a straight face that the problem is not the overconcentration of power; the problem is that the right people don't have it.
“Transformative justice.” It turns out that what Privileged Angry Youth are angry about is that they’re not running things.
Wadda surprise.
There are many reasons to dislike corporations, government, and crowds of all sorts.
Afaic some of increased wealth inequality is legit because technology leverages high performers. Afaic some of it is illegitimate because of crony capitalism and corruption.
Afaic the increased concentration of wealth is just one aspect of an increased concentration of power: political power, economic power, cultural power, social power,… Factions in our society advocate concentrating forms of power that are favorable to them, and the opposite for unfavorable forms. I don’t foresee that process ending benignly.
Addendum 20140421: Yale economist Robert Shiller claims the solution is to raise taxes on the rich. Transfer money and power from one metastasized part of society to another. Yeah, that'll work. (Why am I not surprises that Shiller is a Brookings participant?)
If I were king, I would tinker with the boundary conditions for antitrust, regulation, and monopolies like IP to abet the private sector in reducing the concentration via creative destruction. Government fiat should be a last resort. I fear, though, that the country's misgovernance, shortsightedness and corruption are so bad that growth of government power will continue until collapse or, at best, stagnation.
Addendum 20140424: If I were king, I would tinker with the boundary conditions for antitrust, regulation, and monopolies like IP...
And I'd order the Royal Antitrust Enforcer to take a very hard look indeed at those cushy compensation committees composed of overpaid executives who set each others' remuneration.
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