Modern inequality is at record highs and, in some cases, even eclipses the extreme inequality of the ancient past. The Roman Empire, notorious for its unabashed plutocracy, doesn’t hold a candle to modern imbalances. In 2012, the economist Branko Milanovic estimated that the businessman Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire, had an annual income that

The wealthiest eighty-five people on the entire planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined. It’s hard to even take in that statistic. Between 1979 and 2007, the wages of the top 1 percent of households in the United States rose ten times more than the bottom 90 percent.