Inequality: "Capital" and its discontents

Why do we care about inequality? We care about it because we are human, and we can't help but be concerned about matters of fairness, however much economists might wish that were not the case. But what Mr Crook seems not to understand is that we also care about it because we care about living standards. Mr Piketty's book does an able job showing that high levels and concentrations of capital have not been a necessary or sufficient condition for rapid growth in the past, though they have often sowed the seeds for political backlash that is detrimental to long-run growth. His argument is that the living standards of many people around the rich world are now unnecessarily low, because of the nonchalance with which elites have approached distributional issues over the past generation, and that continued heedlessness of this sort will ultimately undermine the growth-boosting institutions of capitalism. His argument is that economic growth that concentrates benefits on a small group of people will probably not be tolerated as fair, even if living standards among the masses are not completely stagnant.