OK, I'll bite. I am one of three owners of a roughly £1-1.5M pa t/o company in the UK (depends on the wind direction.) We've operated for 21 years now - it's IT Services, mainly consultancy. We've always offered a few Class B shares to time served employees in addition to salary. Not many shares but some.
I'm not too sure what on earth "late stage capitalism" means but I do know that my little firm trundles on quite happily and works slightly better for the extra incentive that directly contributing equals directly earning. We have never insisted that shareholders need work extra hours or whatever. I kick people out of the office if they work too late. Work life balance is important.
Is offering or not offering equity something that can be considered within the realms of "morally questionable"?
A business is a business and a contract is a contract. When you take up employment within a business, you engage with a contract. If the contract offered is not one you like, you are not obliged to accept it. The last two sentences are rather polarised and I accept that the real world is rather more nuanced when you consider individual cases.
Can you really call a mutually agreed equity arrangement as "morally questionable"? You might as well describe working for a salary as morally questionable too. Anyway, whose morals are we considering and what standards do they espouse? Morals don't live in a vacuum nor do morals stay attached to a single concept. Your "morals" may well not be the same as mine!
We (my little company) are quite boring, rather small and won't ever feature in a how to take over the world, unless 10^-3 unicorn suddenly becomes exciting.