And that has absolutely zero to do with science in general and economic models in particular.
Time and again we see populist politicians fanning up the masses with anti-capitalist rhetoric that is absolute bullshit from the start, and they routinely attack economic problems by disregarding basic facts of nature with assertions involving silly conspiracy theories always attributing blame to their political opponents and scapegoats. Every time this happens it does not mean that science failed or that there is a massive conspiracy theory keeping the socialist man down. It just means that disregarding science has serious consequences that no totalitarian regime can quelsh no matter how many gillotines they set up in feont of Goldman-Sachs.
Isn't that also what the elites (say, the 10%-ers) have historically also said for realistic and entirely possible solutions (like beheading the King and building a democratic state, or stopping segregation, or extending the vote to women, or adding labor protections, or welfare, and so on), that they felt were beneath them, because they were demanded by the populace and went against their interests as a class?
Every modern right has been established by struggles, parties, mass revolts, and so on, deemed "populist", "vulgar", "irresponsible", and "destructive" at the time by those opposing them.
Every single one of them.
That said, you are right, the struggle is real. But it's likely not the 10%, but probably less or a lot more, depending on how you view people who benefit from the status quo. For example anyone who buys a new car, plans a trip, ponders over a job offer, submits an offer on a tender has options to try to rock the boat. Greener, more fair, more just options are usually there - but of course those usually also require some kind of trade off. Do we want something that's good on the long term, or something that's good on the short term?
And based on how many options people have and how little they value the long term, the global perspective we could classify them into different kinds of beneficiaries of the status quo. And it's enough for a small cabal of cooperating power brokers to benefit themselves to and unimaginably huge degree. As in significant portion of the world's "income" goes to people who had the option to enrich themselves and took it.
Sure, this can be complicated further by looking at those who enriched themselves then proceeded to spend those riches on goals that ultimately help others - but these deviations are usually small, and again, ultimately, can be factored in.
However, sometimes beheading kings is contraproductive as you get a civil war. Similarly just adding more voters does not magically lead to a fairer outcome. The classic example is adding more and more cannibals will eventually lead to a bit of a pickle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative
The politburo in the Soviet Union probably employed a similar style of propaganda.
Beheading the king has never lead to a democratic state.
The end of segregation as well as suffrage were achieved by slow evolutionary process.
Revolutions and radical means had never achieved anything but chaos, mass slaughter and poverty.
Solving the populism issue means tackling the root issues it feeds from first.
The problem is that prejudice is also invented and disseminated by these unscrupulous politicians with their populist rhetoric. We see that in any extreme cormer of the political spectrum, whether its anti-capitalist socialists or racial supremacists. History is packed with examples where totalitarian regimes outright negate science to push their absurd populist rhetoric.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-life-expectancy...
Not quite. Models only explain relationships between parameters.
Moreover, inequality is a meaningless concept that is the posterchild of how the goalpost is kept moving by populist politicians. It's meaningless in its definition, as it is kept very maleable to fit the argument, and it's meaningless in the conclusion, as there is no problem in having someome earning more than his neighbor.
Our reality is still created by a contribution of several factors, some of which have greater weight, it's not some intangible mass of confusion with no alternative but "business as usual" as the "non-populists" present it.
It might not have been Chinese themselves, for example, but it was the outsourcing and migration of industries that left many people without a job (and no real prospect for "re-education" and a new career, at most a crappy lower deal).
The "credit freeze right after the crash" still happened within the crash that Goldman Sachs and its ilk caused, and still happened in a world where Goldman Sachs and its ilk set the rules.
The financial crisis is what happens when we don't have access to credit. Whether the financial industry self-destructs as in 2008 or is destructed by the guillotines outside, you're going to have a hard time getting credit without it. No credit, we'd just be in the 2009 world at steady state.
On the other hand, there's a difference between the ilk performing their functions and the tail wagging the dog.
(I specifically picked on GS because this weird sense I have that US economic policy has been outsourced to Goldman-Sachs for several decades.)
I further suspect that economists, as a field, will continue to claim that their models, metrics, theories, and policy advice are good, while complaining about the inexplicable rise of populism, right up until somebody sets up a guillotine in front of Goldman-Sachs. (Populism is easy to explain: the peasants are revolting.)