Wealth will always be very unequal, see the Mathew principle - just like a few songs have the most listeners and a few books the most readers. And it's hard to stay at the top too, so the elites are always changing.
The real issue comes when the really powerful can inflate their and their friends assets at will.
Furthermore, I recall reading once that wealth inequality was positively correlated with mental illness, even in the rich of a society.
As such, even if there is always some inequality, I think it is worthwhile to try to reduce it, although by boosting the lower part of scale. In other words, if you live in a world where only the rich have cars, you reduce inequality by making cars for the poor like Henry Ford, not by taking rich people's cars.
In the modern US, I think this would entail making housing and education and healthcare more affordable/accessible.
> In other words, if you live in a world where only the rich have cars, you reduce inequality by making cars for the poor like Henry Ford, not by taking rich people's cars.
Then Henry Ford displaces John Jacob Astor. You still have wealth inequality, in fact it might have even increased. But the poor now have on-demand mobility to any part of the country in a matter of days.
I don't understand the focus on relative wealth. Why should someone not have, to borrow a phrase, more money than God, if it's not being stolen from others. Why should ability and capital be envied instead left to its own devices?
The fact that the wealthy can invest into assets at will doesn’t seem problematic to me.
Who would be better at “investing” assets into a new venture: Someone who is wealthy and has a track record of operating successful businesses? Or a government bureaucrat representing the “will of the people” who ultimately makes his salary off the backs of taxpayers?
The real issue comes when the really powerful can inflate their and their friends assets at will.