One of the reasons that some of my friends find they are uncomfortable with income inequality is they have a sense that very rich people have a great deal more power than everyone else.
If this were true, I would be in favor of a income redistribution. It is simply not true.
The area in which the rich are presumed to have more power is politics and government.
If my readers are not familiar with the statement by the most brilliant of all politicians, Jesse Unruh, I'll remind you: ‘if you can't take their booze, their money and their women and vote against them, you don't belong in politics’.
That is an accurate statement. Politicians have reasons to vote to mitigate conflicting power centers. Interests that override money. They invariably take money from all sides and make their decision independent of that money unless there is only one side with money.
I have spent several decades in the political world. Rich people are no more influential than leaders of political action groups. Rich people are seldom as skilled as political workers, union bosses and local government officials.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs' wife and Warren Buffet may be able to arrange dinners with political leaders but their influence is genuinely insignificant.
Political people are taught to respond to real power, exercised by politically skilled people. Money does not often deliver either of those attributes.
Therefore I am never concerned about income inequality being associated with differential power in our society.