Asklemmy

You will always have the rich & powerful and the poor. The problem is that the rich have lost all care for the poor. When you look throughout history the aristocracy was raised to rule and to steward great wealth. This meant funding art, cathedrals, public works, social services, charitable endeavors etc This raised the HDI for their surrounding community and nation. Certainly it wasn't perfect but it was something, more than what we have now.

While most billionaires are invisible to the public what's very clear with the visible is that they are loosely 'self-made' in which maybe they were rich to begin with but not remotely close to how rich they are now. This comes with a "well I earned it so I'll spend it" philosophy. Furthermore our culture has no shared sense of identity or morality anymore so the social contract is broken. Having shed all historical culture and tradition we're increasingly atomized and alien to one another. As a result America and to a lesser extent "The West" is comprised no longer of nations but instead of balkanized economic zones. It's late-stage capitalism for sure but I would argue more succintly that it is late-stage materialism. Nihilism will always be the result when you remove the soul from the social equation.