there are some very real counterexamples. It's hard to argue that the US did not undergo both decreasing inequality and growth between 1860 and 1900. Decreasing inequality (well a good chunk of the population was no longer chattel slavery, if nothing else), and the US went from "utterly destroyed by a civil war" to "nascent superpower"

more quantitative measures of inequality between 1860-1900 (that probably doesn't take into account slaves) https://voxeu.org/article/american-growth-and-inequality-170...