Social disparity is much more prevalent nowadays than it was say 50 years ago: CEOs in the USA in 1970 made 30 times what the typical worker earned, some 50 years later it’s up to 350 times. Most of the wealth which was created in recent decades has flown upwards to the very top. In many countries, especially capitalist economies, the top 1% of earners hold more wealth than the bottom 50% combined.
Benjamin Franklin once wrote that “Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes more money”. Fortunes tend to accumulate across generations through property, stocks, and business ownership. Those with capital (money, assets) can invest and grow their wealth faster than those who rely solely on wages, while loopholes and lower tax rates on capital gains also favour the rich.
With affluence comes power — those who control more resources often have outsized influence over laws, tax policies, and government decisions: Billionaire donors like Charles and the late David Koch of Koch Industries have funded political candidates, think tanks, and media to shape U.S. policies, especially on taxes, environmental regulation, and labour laws. As far as media is concerned, Rupert Murdoch, through his empire (Fox News, The Times, The Wall Street Journal), has had substantial influence over public discourse and political outcomes in the U.S., U.K., and Australia.
Income inequality within countries has increased in most developed and emerging economies since around 1980. The share of income going to the top 10% or top 1% has grown sharply, particularly in the U.S., China, India, and Russia. Global inequality between countries, however, has declined, driven by rapid growth in populous developing countries like China and India, reducing thus the income gap across nations.
While technology is a great catalyst in many ways, it also is one of the root causes of socioeconomic imbalance. As The Guardian, a British newspaper reported recently, economic inequality has reached a staggering milestone in Silicon Valley where just nine households hold 15% of the region’s wealth, according to new research from San Jose State University, while a mere 0.1% of residents hold 71% of the tech hub’s riches.
Technology is the source of much of today’s biggest fortunes, with founders and big stake shareholders of their businesses such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg amassing riches – at least on paper – far outstripping those of John D. Rockefeller or JP Morgan when adjusted for inflation (Rockefeller, when measuring his wealth as a percentage of GDP, would even today still be leading the rankings).
Now consider for a minute Elon Musk’s brief stint in the Trump administration as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency and you see where we are heading: The 99% being led by the 1%, the wealthiest people in the world also exercising inordinate political influence. Do we really want to live in a plutocracy?
Artificial intelligence – and in particular AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI, a type that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks) if not developed and implemented sensibly is only going to enhance this trend of concentrating a great deal of knowledge and expertise in the hands of a select few. As I mentioned in my previous post, one potential problem with AI is that many people – and I am deliberately not saying ‘most’ – will see this as an opportunity to take a step back and relinquish control.
An in my opinion inevitable consequence will be that the wealthiest people on the planet will gain even more influence economically through the allocation of their capital (AI is already very resource intensive and is likely to become more so as it evolves) and politically, further deepening economic and social disparity. I am probably painting a much too gloomy picture here, but should tech in general and AI in particular lead to many repetitive and administrative jobs being lost, rising unemployment would ensue and the wages for all roles that could be cheaply and more effectively automated would decline.
Job losses would inevitably lead to demands for redistribution of wealth, be that through higher taxation of the rich or demands for universal handouts to the not moneyed population. This would not be a problem, in principle, if a widespread use of AI were to substantially increase productivity, such as the 20% to 30% annual growth put forward by some think tanks on the basis that AI would handle roughly 30% of all tasks. According to a recent article in The Economist, another British newspaper, such rates would far exceed any historical precedent — even the Industrial Revolution — and would require near‑perfect scaling of AI, seamless regulatory environments, and no physical or social bottlenecks. More plausible are modest uplifts in the low single‐digit percentage points per year, given historical patterns and real‑world constraints.
As I mentioned above: Technology in general is a great enabler, but in the context of artificial intelligence it could potentially also be a major future source of friction between social classes, not only within countries but also quite possibly between nations and maybe even continents. So from this perspective there is a danger that social disparity is going to get worse, with ever fewer people controlling a growing portion of resources, reaping ever greater rewards from their capital investments and, as recent examples have shown, exercising more and more influence at government level.
There are already a number of notable instances of recent social unrest such as in Kenya, where youth-led protests escalated around ongoing economic hardship, tax bills affecting the poorest, police brutality, and misgovernance. Or take France, where widespread discontent in urban and rural areas fuelled protests over youth unemployment, social exclusion, declining trust in institutions, and urban‑rural divides.
The general disquiet in the wider population manifests itself also in a growing polarisation of the political landscapes not least in the developed world. Incumbent parties have been ousted in Western democracies, including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Canada. As the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer shows, such grievances stem from a conviction that the system is unfair, business and government make things worse, and the rich keep getting richer. A growing sense of alienation is so profound that nearly two-thirds of respondents now fear being discriminated against.
But there is hope! While youth-led unrest may seem chaotic, it signals growing political awareness and demand for accountability. Particularly in developing economies students and young people are forcing issues that were previously ignored onto national agendas. People are recognising shared struggles such as economic inequality, climate injustice and colonial legacies. Civil society groups are linking across borders to share tactics, offer legal support, and amplify marginalized voices. At the same time technology is empowering the disenfranchised with mobile phones and social networks helping document abuses and raise awareness as well as organise protests and mutual aid.
Awareness of the current situation and the potential pitfalls ahead is a crucial first step on the path to less inequality and more social cohesion.
The grumpy older man 