In my first political science class, I learned every large human society has had a pyramid shaped distribution of wealth. Inevitably, the small population of the top controls a disproportionally large amount of wealth while the large population at the bottom owns a disproportionally small amount. This pattern holds whether the society is a monarchy, a dictatorship, a “communist” state or a democracy.
From a moral standpoint, one question is whether an unequal distribution is just. While some might be tempted to see any disproportional distribution as unjust, this would be an error. After all, the justness of a distribution is not only matter of numbers. For example, consider the unequal distribution of running trophies. First, most people who have them are or were runners. Most people will not have even a single running trophy. Second, even among runners there is a disproportionate distribution: there is a small percentage of runners who have a large percentage of the trophies. As such, there is a concentration of running trophies. However, this does not seem unjust: the competition for such trophies is usually open and fair and a trophy is generally earned by running well. The better runners will have more trophies and will be a small percentage of the runner population. Because of the nature of the competition, I have no issue with this. There is, of course, my bias in that I have won a lot of running trophies.
Those who defend the unequal distribution of wealth often claim competition for it is analogous to that of running trophies: the competition is open, the competition is fair, and the reward is justly earned by competing well. While this is a reasonable approach to justifying the massive inequality, the obvious problem is that these claims are simply not true.
Those who start out in a wealthy family might not make their money by inheritance, but they enjoy a significant starting advantage over those born into less affluent families. While it is true that a few people rise from humble origins to great financial success, those stories are so impressive because of the difficulty of doing so and the small number of people who achieve such great success. If people could consistently become wealthy through hard work and talent, these stories would be unremarkable, and the inequality of wealth would be much lower.
There is also the fact that the wealthy use their influence to ensure the political and social system favors them. While their efforts might not be explicitly aimed at keeping other people down, the effect is that the wealthy are favored and defended against attempts to “intrude” into the top of the pyramid. Naturally, people will point to those who succeeded fantastically despite this system. But, once again, these stories are impressive because of the incredible challenges that had to be overcome and because they are incredibly rare.
There is also the doubt about whether those who possess the greatest wealth earned the wealth in a way that justifies it. In the case of running, a person must earn her gold medal in the Olympic marathon by being the best runner and there is (usually) little doubt that the achievement has been properly earned. However, the situation of great wealth is not as clear. If a person arose from humble origins and by hard work, virtue, and talent managed to earn a fortune, then it seems fair to accept the justice of that wealth. However, if someone merely inherits an unearned fortune or engages in misdeeds (like corruption or crime) to acquire the wealth, then that is unjust wealth.
So, to the degree that the competition for wealth is open and fair and to the degree that the earning of wealth is proportional to merit, then the unbalanced distribution could be regarded as just. However, this is obviously not the case. For example, a quick review of the laws, tax codes, and so on in the United States will show how the system is intended to work.
Suppose for the sake of argument, that the distribution of wealth in the United States is warranted on grounds like the distribution of running trophies. That is, suppose that the competition is open, fair and the rewards are merit based. This still provides grounds for criticism of the radical concentration of wealth.
One obvious point is that the distribution of running trophies has no significant impact. After all, a person can have a good life without any trophies. As such, letting them be divided up by competition is morally acceptable—even if most trophies go to a few people. However, wealth is fundamentally different as it is a necessity for survival. Beyond mere survival, it also determines the material quality of life in terms of health, clothing, housing, education, entertainment, and so on. Roughly put, wealth (loosely taken) is a necessity. To have such a competition when the well-being (and perhaps the survival) of people is at stake seems morally repugnant.
One obvious counter is a version of the survival of the fittest arguments of the past. The idea is that, just like all living things, people must compete to survive. As in nature, some people will not compete as well and will have less and perhaps not survive. Others will do better and a very few will do best of all.
The obvious reply is that this competition makes some sense when resources are so scarce that all cannot survive. To use a fictional example, if people are struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, then the competition for basic survival might be warranted by the reality of the situation. However, when resources are plentiful it is morally repugnant for the few to hyper-concentrate wealth while the many are left with little or nothing. To use the obvious analogy, seeing a glutton stuffing herself with a vast tableful of delicacies while her guards keep starving people away and her minions sell the scraps would strike all but the most callous as horrible. However, replace the glutton with one of the 1% and some are willing to insist that the situation is fair and just.
As a final point, the 1% also need to worry about the inequality of distribution. The social order which keeps the 99% from simply slaughtering the 1% requires that enough of the 99% believe that the situation is working for them. This can be done, to a degree, by coercion (police and military force) and delusion (this is where Fox News comes in). However, coercion and delusion have their limits and society, like all things, has a breaking point. While the rich can often escape a collapse in one country by packing up and heading to another (as dictators occasionally do), until space travel is a viable option the 1% are still stuck on earth with everyone else. Which is one reason why the richest of the rich have been so interested in space ships.