Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

To determine the size of the Roman economy and the distribution of income, historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen pored over papyri ledgers, previous scholarly estimates, imperial edicts, and Biblical passages. Their target was the state of the economy when the empire was at its population zenith, around 150 C.E. Schiedel and Friesen estimate that the top 1 percent of Roman society controlled 16 percent of the wealth, less than half of what America’s top 1 percent control.

With the transfer of trillions of dollars to the world’s richest people because of covid, this inequality in the US has likely gotten even worse. This wouldn’t be quite so bad if the super wealthy were using their money for good purposes. In the Roman Empire, the richest class made good enough use of their money that we still admire their works today. From the same 2011 study: ‘But buried at the end, they make a point that’s difficult to parse, yet provocative. They point out that the majority of extant Roman ruins resulted from the economic activities of the top 10 percent.’ In other words, the Roman upper class was responsible for the aqueducts, theaters, temples, baths, etc., before which people stand in awe when they visit former Roman lands. https://orthodoxreflections.com/what-would-make-us-billionaires-more-generous/