Disparity in Income

[sleigh]

I would argue that income disparity has often been a cause of social unrest: when the gap between rich and poor becomes too large and too apparent, when more and more wealth is held in fewer and fewer hands, when all the power appears to be consolidated in the hands of a small elite, then eventually the lower class will resort to violence, and there is a danger of a society/government/empire falling apart completely.

Therefore, I found this article by Karl Smith rather disturbing. Here's a snippet of the text between the numerous charts and graphs...

"...we can see that the Top 1% has more than triple[d] its income with fairly steady growth since 1980. The middle and lower classes have seen only about a 15% increase in real income with all of those gains coming after the early 90s.

"What’s even more interesting to me is that the gains to the Top 1% seem to be steady and at first glance trend reverting. That is, there appears to be a consistent underlying rate of growth ever since 1980, with income rising above trend during booms and falling below during recessions.

"Plotting the trend line reveals that the Top 1% is seeing its income grow at roughly 4.2% per year in real terms."

I find the trends outlined in the article dangerous, and I wonder if we're approaching the point where the middle and lower classes will begin to become vocal, or even take more direct action.

What do you think?