[BobbyJo]

Two things:

1) You have to get it out of your head that it is enough when everyone has X standard of living. It isn't. It's enough when less than a critical threshold of the population is dissatisfied, and that dissatisfaction can come no matter what the median/lowest standard of living is. This is just how societies work, uniformly.

2) Money is a ledger supported by a social contract. Spending wealth in ways that erode the social contract is bad. I think we can all agree 500M dollar yachts, empty luxury apartment buildings, and buying up shorelines in populated areas are all bad looks, and therefore, erode the social contract. The wealthy really need to step in and police each other socially here, if they want to continue being wealthy.

[suttontom]

How do you run a society based on who is dissatisfied? It seems reasonable to say that, even though there's a massive wealth gap, if the poorest are healthier, wealthier, and generally better off than they were a generation ago (that might not be true though with this current generation, who it seems may die earlier than their parents did), then changing laws because those people are "dissatisfied" seems kind of arbitrary, because dissatisfaction is kind of the human condition.

[BobbyJo]

> How do you run a society based on who is dissatisfied?

We already do. Most of what governments do is reactionary to dissatisfaction.

> then changing laws because those people are "dissatisfied" seems kind of arbitrary

It's the opposite of arbitrary. Governments generally rule via power invested in them by the populace. Doing things that alleviate dissatisfaction is a survival tactic.

> dissatisfaction is kind of the human condition.

This is why building a rational and cooperative society is important, because they are the cure for misplaced dissatisfaction. That being said, historically, governments aren't stable, and that is, in large part, due to some of your points.

[BobaFloutist]

The problem is that wealth can be used to purchase dissatisfaction, so that becomes yet another lever for the destructive rich.