But there hasn't been a steady improvement over 50 years. Here's what the OECD says [1]: "According to the OECD income distribution database, income inequality among total population in the United States has steady increased from 1974 to 2010."
And here's what the US Census Bureau says about poverty in the United States [2]: "In the late 1950s, the poverty rate was approximately 22 percent, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1 percent in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15 percent three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011. However, the 46.2 million Americans in poverty in 2011 is the most ever recorded."
[1] http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECDIncomeDistributionDataReview...
[2] https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-s...
Who is centralizing power undemocratically?
I would be okay with it, yes.
But since we have mountains upon mountains of evidence to the contrary (i.e. the wealthy corrupt the political system and make it serve their own ends at the expense of others), your hypothetical is rather meaningless.
>>And if it is the case, how does this make you and me worse off in the absolute sense?
Because it goes against the "one person, one vote" principle of democracy.
Do you mean the mountains of insinuation and innuendo in that article? Just because the Koch brothers want lower taxes and the people who engaged in these tax avoidance schemes do too, doesn't necessarily mean they are colluding to buy elections.
You might as well claim that Apple and Google are buying political power because of the billions they keep offshore, too. They buy power alright, just like all corporations that want to snuff out competition by influencing the laws in their favor. That also keeps the rich rich. But you don't hear of anybody attacking lobbyists, do you?
> it's not about wealth relative to the past, but about wealth relative to everyone else in the present.
Who is debating that, exactly? I said things can be a lot better and fairer. But steady improvement over 50 years is nothing to be scoffed at and needs to be recognized and analyzed if we want to preserve those gains for those most marginalized.
> wealth buys political power.... is inevitably used to further concentrate wealth
What if this was shown not to be the case? Would you still be okay with the inequality? And if it is the case, how does this make you and me worse off in the absolute sense?