Income and wealth inequality have reached pretty ridiculous levels, and noting that as a problem is not "bemoaning" people their (well-earned) wealth. A lot of that is not money earned by advancing society, a lot of is extractive/rent-seeking that is actually harmful (cough 2008 cough).
For example:
"The median American estimated that the CEO-to-worker pay-ratio was 30-to-1, and that ideally, it’d be 7-to-1. The reality? 354-to-1. "
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/economic-inequali...
Sorry, 354:1 is absolutely ludicrous, and I know a little bit of what I am talking about. My father was a high-ranking auto-executive, had actually been planned to succeed Carl Hahn as CEO of Volkswagen, but some funky politics got in the way of that. He never made that kind of money, and didn't want to. He thought it was obscene. And it is.
He also thought unions were a Good Thing™, and they are. If nothing else, they are selective pressure on companies to become better. And that's despite having that belief tested to the limit, because at VW the unions pretty much run the place.
So yes, envy is not a good thing, but noting that CEO pay is ridiculous, that banker's bonuses need to be reined in lest we all suffer the consequences, again, and that inheritance tax is not the devil is not "bemoaning".
It's an entirely symbolic ratio. If you halved it tomorrow it would not make one whit of difference. It just sounds outrageous and makes for compelling headlines.
Hmmm...I actually mentioned finance and inheritance. Both are at current scales arguably worse. Finance has devolved into rent-seeking that leeches off the real economy and caused the 2008 crisis, with virtually no consequences. Unlimited inheritance creates oligarchies with wealth and power that hasn't actually contributed to society.
> entirely symbolic ratio.
Er, no. Please read up on behavioral economics. If rewards are too lopsided, the game too obviously unfair, people stop playing. That's a really, really, really bad outcome. One we want to avoid at nearly any cost.
My suspicion (hypothesis, really) is that CEO compensation is too abstract a concept to actually impact behaviour all that much. It might spark outrage when people think about it intensively, but most people would be more focused on specific, tangible barriers to their economic wellbeing. Examples might include applying for jobs, networking, performance reviews, salary compared to industry average for their role (higher or lower?).
I would imagine that behavioural economics in academia is probably very specific and attempts to be predictive, whereas behavioural economics in popular journalism is more philosophical and hand-wavy.
How sure are we of the causality here? Does inequality make these things happen?
Maybe countries with strong feelings of unity tend to look after their poorest members better, and tax or restrain their wealthiest members more strongly. In countries with no such feelings it's every man for himself, and those who can screw those who can't, economically and politically. These are less nice places to live, but inequality is one of the results of this, not the cause.
Does it matter?
In fact, I am almost certain that these are results of other things, but that they are so closely linked that if you get income inequality as an outcome of those other things, you also get the other negative results. And vice versa.
I'm not sure that there is no causality, BTW. I'm just objecting that too much discussion assumes it's obviously all causality: The money just falls from heaven onto certain Brazilians, not others, and that's why Rio has the murder rate they do, and you could fix it with income tax. This seems crazy.
However...income inequality by itself is a problem. Hmm...I thought it was one of Hans Rosling's (amazing) TED talks, but now I just see Richard Wilkinson's talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson
Anyway, the fascinating thing is that everything gets worse in a country when there is "too much" inequality. Even the rich in unequal countries are worse off by many/most measures than the rich in more equal countries, despite having more money. (And even than the not quite so rich in the more equal countries, IIRC).
And that's without the whole pitchforks action that starts to happen when things get too out of hand.
So yes, there is some level of inequality that we need to tolerate in order to run a basic capitalist economy, and interestingly enough most people are OK with that. But you also need to work hard to not let that inequality get out of hand, and not because of a bleeding heart, but because of pure self interest.