There was an incredible period of American prosperity starting after World War 2. Good work was plentiful, wages were high, and the middle class prospered- the American dream was alive. That's slipped away from a huge segment of the population. Cost of living shoots up while real wages remain stagnant. We have cheap luxuries that previous generations couldn't dream of but that doesn't mean that many people aren't living paycheck-to-paycheck or fighting to keep their house or running up credit card debt to stay afloat. Outside of our tech bubble, Americans are struggling when they didn't before.
Meanwhile, capital compounds exponentially. People see their quality of life decrease relative to the average person while they work harder than ever, and they see the rich's quality of life increase relative to the average person while their money works for them. It's hard to live every day in that system and not think that there's a problem.
And in fact I think this could be part of the 'problem'. In 1979 a total of 0.1% of the country qualified as rich, and 12.9% as upper middle class. Those numbers have skyrocketed to 1.8% and 29.4% (!!) as of 2014. The percent of people that qualify as below middle class has decreased substantially, but those that remain there are indeed going to see the rest of society doing better than ever - and that's true.
It's what I'd like to call the 'generous king effect.' Imagine a feudal nation with a king and 100 peasants. In spite of the king's absurd wealth, the nation would feel more or less equal. But imagine one day the king feels maybe he's been wrong to hoard everything to himself, so he decides to run a competition and grant the winners vast tracts of land and wealth. Well now society feels a bit less equal with some 10% having great wealth, but things are still mostly fair.
However, our king notices the increasing discontent and so again tries to resolve society. He doesn't have as much left though but wants to still help raise up society. So now he grants the 10 even greater tracts of land with some degree of autonomy, but now also runs another competition granting 30 new individuals wealth and land comparable to what only the 10 had before. We've seen a massive improvement in society. We went from a nation where the 100 had nothing to where 10 have enormous wealth, the 30 have great wealth, and now only 60 are left with nothing. Yet ironically, society is going to be more discontent than ever as suddenly 40% of people have great wealth while the 60% have nothing. What makes those 40% so special after all!?!?
In an effort to improve the lives of the people, those that experience the upward push last become less and less content. And even though their situation is likely even better than it was when all 100 people had nothing, it's probably not going to feel that way. We obviously don't have a king. But we do have an economic system that's making these changes, and it does indeed seem to be succeeding in increasing the economic power of everybody over time, and the social response seems similar - probably driven by a media who seems to love triggering anger and discontent.
(Rhetorical questions incoming) At what point do the Bezos/Gates of the world step in to help this problem? Do they even have any kind of moral/societal/civilization-wide obligation to help tackle a worsening system that they got rich off of? Should they have this obligation? If not, who does?
Did you know that in the early 20th century feed and flour bags used to come with vibrant floral designs. Know why? Since nobody could really afford to buy clothes, people would regularly fashion their own clothes out of whatever they could get - which included these large bags. Companies saw an opportunity and started creating lovely designs on them. This is a time we can hardly even imagine. Now a days even the poor can easily afford many of the things that only the most elite of society could previously. It wasn't even that long ago that a toaster was an extreme luxury. And of course they also have luxuries that those of times past could only dream of as they literally did not exist. In terms of what we have, people have more than ever today. And people want even more. And I think that's a good thing! The never ending drive for more more more is probably an evolutionary imperative which has paid rich dividends for our development as a species.
But let's hit on the Bezos thing. Some of what I said above is conflating technological progress with economic progress. After all one of the reasons many things became cheaper, or available, is not strictly because the poor have more money (though they do!) but because technology enabled things to become much cheaper, and to introduce entirely new things. Bezos is, by far, the richest person in the world. On an individual level his wealth, $135.5 billion, is hard to even imagine. But now let's imagine his level on a social level. What if we, or he, decided to just 'benevolently' share his wealth with everybody in the world. That $135.5 billion is worth a little less than $18 per person. Even at the bottom of the world, that's hardly life changing money.
However, technology does change lives. And while $135.5 billion is nothing in terms of the world, it's an enormous amount in terms of advancing space technology. Can you imagine how much the world will change once we begin to colonize other planets, or when we are able to effectively extract resources from celestial bodies, and so on? Or think of all of the tangential technological developments will inadvertently be discovered in the process of this all. The world has basically been playing on fast forward since the colonization of the new world, and space will open a door like something we can hardly even imagine. I too want things to get better and I think what Bezos is planning to do with his money is vastly more likely to, in the longrun, improve life for all of us far more than, for instance, what Gates is doing with his money.