It's a bad thing because it is an objective fact that it is a source of human suffering. You might have a moral or aesthetic preference that humans should not respond to inequality that way, but that is no more meaningful than a belief that they should not adversely react to oxygen deprivation.
But let's say that's just not how the world is, envy is certainly a very real human emotion. What level of inequality is necessary to cause broad social unrest? Do we have anything close to a situation like in Venezuela?
It is really cool how you are telling me to do the legwork and make your argument for you. Definitely productive.
I'll repeat what i said before, anticipating exactly this line: You might have a moral or aesthetic preference that humans should not respond to inequality that way, but that is no more meaningful than a belief that they should not adversely react to oxygen deprivation.
> It is really cool how you are telling me to do the legwork and make your argument for you.
If you need a simple starting point that is freely available online, Income Satisfaction and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link, D’Ambrosio, C. & Frick, J.R. Soc Indic Res (2007) 81: 497. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Conchita_DAmbrosio/publ...
But it's a big area of research, and if you are genuinely unfamiliar with it and concerned at all with economic development and related public policy, you are going to want to spend some time with the area
If you accept that we will never be equal (aka aren't a communist) then the question becomes, what is a "good" level of inequality? How do you determine that? Does inequality increasing actually mean anything?
I'd argue inequality is quite meaningless. Especially on a national basis. Everyone can be equally poor, what good did lower inequality do then? Why focus on inequality instead of something like poverty? As Louis CK tells his daughter in an episode of Louis "The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtxuy-GJwCo