For some time now, the obscenely rich have begun to express a small amount of alarm about what the disparity between the rich and the poor can cause, as they reflect on the history of such unbalance in other countries and civilizations and the prospect for their well-being shrinks as their wealth grows.

In the past few meetings of the world’s rich folks in Davos, Switzerland, the problem of inequality among the people and the ruling classes in so many countries has been openly discussed. They know, for example, that it did not go well for their kind in the French Revolution and its aftermath and they would like to avoid such an occurrence in their own countries. The rich of the U.S. are not ignoring the severe problem of violent inequality in their own country, but that hasn’t stopped them from accumulating more and more wealth.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. billionaires have continued accumulating so much wealth that, in some instances, the wealth and power they gained just in 2020 could finance the building of new schools for the children of the nation, so that none would be required to suffer cold in the winter and heat in the summer, so that they could attend classes in airy and healthy classrooms with teachers who are not burdened with too many children in each class. Or, that wealth could build back the nation’s hospital stock, so that Covid-19 patients are not stored in hallways or in tents in the parking lot.

In the meantime, rank-and-file Americans have seen their places of employment close, open partially and then close again, causing millions of them to be without a paycheck for months and to need supplemental food from pantries to feed their families, not to mention finding a way to get non-Covid health care for their children and themselves. Desperation is too tame a word for millions of families, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell waffles on whether to provide a second so-called Covid 19-stimulus check for every person. His Republican majority wants to provide about half what the Democrats have proposed as the minimum needed, which gives him the opening to blame the Democrats for refusing to bargain on the amount. He should try to live without a paycheck or without the money his rich wife can provide for him.

The concentration of wealth and income among the top one percent or one-tenth of one percent is not just unfair, it is taking much of the wealth that should have been distributed among all of the people, with all of the programs that make for a healthy, educated, engaged, and robust society, much like some other rich societies which, by many measures, are productive, healthy, and happy societies. The U.S. must find a way to equalize the distribution of all that wealth, so there aren’t that many billionaires (last March, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, there were 614 billionaires worth a total of $2.95 trillion, while this week, there were 650 billionaires worth nearly $4 trillion) and they don’t hold that much of the nation’s wealth. There is no incentive for the obscenely rich to do any distributing, except for their granting pocket change of $10 million or $20 million to some charities during the course of a year. Their investments can make that up in a week or two, so they should not even miss that small amount, even though to the average wage-earner, they are being very generous. It’s good PR for them.

Tax cuts for the rich were supposed to trickle down to the Great Unwashed, but that has been shown to have been a great scam from the start. President Trump’s “big tax cut” went primarily to the rich, to people like him, and left the wage workers holding the (mostly empty) bag. It seems that the rich just can’t seem to share the wealth with their fellow Americans.

There might be a bright spot on the horizon, but it may not be all that bright, because there aren’t that many of them: The children of the rich. A New York Times story at the end of November was headlined “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism,” and the stories of those interviewed reflect the attitudes of those young Americans who are not so well-off. The alarms have been sounded across the echo chamber of right-wing news outlets: They seem to like the idea of socialism. And, that’s because capitalism has not shown itself to be the “shining city on the hill,” as the trickle-down president, Ronald Reagan, famously called it. These young people know the source of the trickle and they are not accepting it and many seem to be ready to rebel against it.

The Times reported in that story, “According to the consulting firm Accenture, the Silent Generation and baby boomers will gift their heirs up to $30 trillion by 2030, and up to $75 trillion by 2060. These fortunes began to amass decades ago - in some cases centuries. But the concentration of wealth became stratospheric starting in the 1970s, when neoliberalism became the financial sector’s guiding economic philosophy and companies began to obsessively pursue higher returns for shareholders.”

Elizabeth Baldwin, a democratic socialist from Massachusetts, who was adopted as an infant from India, sees her role as a distributer of her personal wealth as a form of reparations. She, like others interviewed for the Times story, invests in cooperative enterprises with a focus on black-owned businesses and keeping in mind that all of the land it is on was taken from the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the first place. She shuns the stock market and rather invests in local economies, what she and others call the “solidarity economy.” The Times quotes her: “I get rich because other people aren’t getting rich, and I don’t want to keep making more wealth off investments in things like Coca-Cola and Exxon-Mobil. I would rather put my money into a community that has been denied economic resources and disrupt the system.”

It’s not likely that the obscenely rich are beginning to shudder because of the attitudes and beliefs of a handful of children of the obscenely rich, but these young people might be a sign of things to come. That’s what they are worried about. The idea that there are young, smart, and active members of Congress who are pushing the same kinds of things for everyone has to given the rich pause, even if they are secure in the power of their wealth. It’s why they are discussing the issue at Davos and in other places. There is a shard of fear that capitalism has run its course and people are awakening to the possibility of a different form of economy. Certainly, they know of the shortcomings of capitalism (the inevitable nation of haves and have-nots) and that the people will only put up with it for so long.

The U.S. priorities are not geared to the people, but to the rich and their corporations. Why is manufacturing geared to making bombs and weapons systems, rather than schools, hospitals, and low-cost housing? Simple. Because the profits are in producing and selling weapons of war, not in providing the means to a decent standard of living for everyone. A majority of the federal budget each year is for “defense” and the military. Everything else gets short shrift.

There is enough money floating around the U.S. to provide jobs, education, health care, housing, and more for everyone, but it seems that most of that money floats or is grabbed by the handful of rich and taken out of the hands of the people, especially the working poor and those who can’t work. The money that is accumulated by the rich comes from the low wages of workers and comes out of their substance. As the founders declared of King George, he was “hollowing out the people.” The rich are doing the same thing to the people today. That’s what the kids of the rich are talking about and that’s what many in the younger generation are coming to realize. There are changes coming, whether the rich or their politicians like it.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Contact Mr. Funiciello and BC.