Can they? In spite of increased income inequality, our political process is becoming more hostile to the rich than it was historically.
Of course, after taking a walk through my locale (Parbhani, India), I'm fairly unsympathetic to claims that relative status is what matters. Perhaps it was the man lifting his lungi to poop next to an open sewer. Maybe it was the auto driver sleeping on the job. It could be the garbage everywhere (taking off your shoes when you enter an Indian home isn't a cultural quirk). Maybe it's the fact that the very nice hotel I'm staying in would be shut down immediately in the US.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that most of the people around me would be happy to have these problems fixed, even if it resulted in the income of "rich" people (like Americans below the American poverty line) quadrupling.
Of course, after taking a walk through my locale (Parbhani, India), I'm fairly unsympathetic to claims that relative status is what matters. Perhaps it was the man lifting his lungi to poop next to an open sewer. Maybe it was the auto driver sleeping on the job. It could be the garbage everywhere (taking off your shoes when you enter an Indian home isn't a cultural quirk). Maybe it's the fact that the very nice hotel I'm staying in would be shut down immediately in the US.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that most of the people around me would be happy to have these problems fixed, even if it resulted in the income of "rich" people (like Americans below the American poverty line) quadrupling.
Inequality is a first world problem.