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We've had great inequality in the U.S. before (beginning of 20th century) and it somehow resolved itself. Perhaps there is a historical lesson in there somewhere.

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It was resolved in part thanks to World War II which was a massive all-in undertaking for the US (which it never really backed down from, they've maintained a massive standing force ever since then.) That was a huge redirection of capital that created many jobs while simultaneously removing millions from the work force. That is basically a perfect storm for raising wages across the board, and thus decreasing inequality.

Historically wars and unrest seem to be critical for redistribution of wealth once inequality increased to unsustainable levels. I wonder what will happen now in this era of unprecedented peace.

You make my point. I don't believe there has ever been a redistribution from wealthy to poor without war and violence.

Social democracy is the least painful solution within the current societal organization. That or mass labor movements. Otherwise unfettered capitalism will simply exacerbate inequality until things reach a tipping point - if billionaires and people that control the media don’t begin to shill for more redistributionist policies in the next couple decades they will have indirectly killed themselves

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