I agree but I also think the severity at least specifically in America is reaching late-stage post-Yeltsin Putin mafioso-oligarchy.

Yeah. I’m in bitter, reluctant agreement there.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but the share of the pie has never been larger for the 0.1% than it is now.

Well, don’t forget that ‘more’ of the pie was subsistence-level in the past, if that makes sense. Oftentimes, the reason that the ultra-wealthy in the past didn’t have a bigger share of the ‘pie’ wasn’t because of successful pushback against the ultra-wealthy, but because people were living in such primitive circumstances that they literally could not be reduced to a lower standard of living without it costing more than it gained due to the crude technological and organizational standards of the time.

There are definite periods of the past worse-off under the aristocracy than currently, both in terms of practical terms and in accumulation of power over society. But there are also periods of the past (admittedly largely recent) with better levels of anti-aristocratic action, and we should be living in an age when people are fucking given access to enough information to not be fucking stupid enough to make society worse over time instead of at least slightly better.