Societies have made the poor better off by preventing people from becoming too wealthy, though. Specifically, I'm thinking of the very high high-end tax rates that were common 60 years ago.

which countries did have high standards for everyone but no "too rich" (whatever that def means. Is more than 1 million dollars too much?) people?

I don't know about "too rich", but if you're looking at the distribution of income and wealth, you'll find an increasing divide between poor and rich over the last decades in pretty much all western countries at least.

If everyone's wealth goes up 10%, the gap between the rich and the poor increases.

Besides, someone creating more wealth than you do does not hurt you.

Not in relative terms, which is what people usually measure. And yes, the gap has been increasing in relative terms.

And I wonder what's behind that rhetoric twist in your second sentence. Was that on purpose or do you not even notice?

Because no, somebody creating more wealth than me does not hurt me by itself (I might even benefit!). Somebody accumulating and being able to command more wealth than me can hurt me, among other reasons because it gives them political power, which they can wield to hurt me and others. Inequal wealth accumulation taken to its logical extreme is undemocratic because it violates the principle of one person one vote.

(Some wealth accumulation is okay. There's room for nuance here.)

> Societies have made the poor better off by preventing people from becoming too wealthy

Example, please.

Many have made the poor worse off by pandering to the rich and entitled.

The rich don't have to be eaten, just constrained from exercising their worst excesses.