> they live a far more deprived life

It took me a minute to figure out the typo ("depraved" instead of "deprived")

Japan compares much better to the US in terms of how much wealth the top 1% control. 24.6% vs 34.8% according to https://wid.world

Graph here: https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW

That is true, but at this point in time, looking at wealth inequality in the US for comparison feels pointless, as the US can't be seen as a humanoid society anymore. By that I mean the riches of the Top 1%, and the "soon" attitude of the bottom 80% in the US feel alien, surreal, and perverted to an extent it stopped being useful as a measure for humans.

If you look at the graph I linked, you can see that the world average for that statistic has consistently been higher compared to the US, though the two series have been converging lately. So according to that data the US has not been uniquely unfair, but it has been getting worse.

I do think there will have to be large changes soon.

Depends what you mean by "control". If you don't own a nice house, car, driver etc. but your company just happens to provide it as a perk, then you still have it.

That's a fair point. Is it actually common for CEOs to live on a company property? I can see how transport would be company controlled.

Yu Suzuki ("creator of Virtual Fighter") had 3 company ferraris. He played while his employees worked 14+ hours days. It's extremely common in Japan for bosses to get tons of perks and have their employees overworked and underpaid. Programming job in Japan start at $20k a year and except for a few western companies, peak at ~$50k a year. Be careful what you wish for

What’s the difference exactly? I don’t think the pickers at Amazon would believe they’re living the high life thanks to the sacrifices Jeff is making.

Japanese CEOs have a Toyota Crown in their garage and spend each Friday night at a kyabakura/hostess bar with a few employees. They take a trip to Hawaii twice a year.

American CEOs are on the board of 8 companies but spend 5 minutes a year combined at the offices of those companies. They spend their weekends at private islands off the coast of the US Virgin Islands with other billionaires. They fire employees who ask for health care benefits or a day off. They actively endorse political candidates who went to the same private island with them and who will lengthen working hours, reduce benefits, and make it easier to fire employees. They want global surveillance to track anyone who's ever even considered saying anything bad about them. When it's possible to inject ads directly into our brains, those CEOs will force their employees to do it.

As an American who's been in Japan for a very long time and worked at Japanese companies, Japanese companies don't pay big bucks, but there are fewer deranged ultra rich people within them.

Depends on the scale of the company;

At the biggest ones you start to see branches of the organisation dedicated to c level services... Things like a driver awake and ready to go 24/7 (for the whole family), purchasing or even building apartments.

All available in the west, but the distinction is who directly pays for these things.