Why is economic inequality not coming down and reform solidifying consistently?
The question of why there isn't *more* political response to contemporary developments.
I think the problem is: socialist movements in the 21st century are weak compared to the 20th century.
Moderates are flabbergasted. Before my view was consistently on the left, I was wondering about this too.
But then I learned about the history of the left and the labor movements, and then it becomes more clear why the much-desired turnaround is not materializing.
In the 20th century, it was decades of sustained socialist pressure (albeit many different varieties) that eventually forced all societies to give way to reform.
Trade union membership approached 50% or more of the workforce in many countries.
Revolutions occurred in Germany, Hungary, Finland and Russia, albeit with variable character.
Socialist labor parties attained much political power, most prominently in the Nordics and Britain.
Also, the threat of the Soviet Union and the potential for left-wing parties winning majorities haunted conservatives and forced them to compromise.
Now that neither exist, this pressure has been alleviated.
A major reason the Social Democrats won the 1932 election is because the Liberal prime minister was disgraced for getting donations from Ivar Kreuger, a notorious monopoly capitalist in Sweden at the time.
The Conservatives received about 5 - 7 million Swedish Kroner from industrialists, the Liberals about 2 million (after ww2 I recall)
The profit motive (that is, the *exclusive* use of *limited* resources for personal benefit) is a remnant of prior economic systems that were predicated on scarcity.
We also know that ideologies favoring hierarchy and (e.g right-wing ones) are based on a scarcity mentality.
Social classes and economic inequality are not inevitable, they are the result of underlying methods that humanity uses to produce for its survival.
We can see that humanity becomes more egalitarian as production resources develop and become more abundant.
The move from feudalism based on *scarce* natural resources (such as land) to capitalism based on *abundant* reproduced resources (machines) reduced many hierarchies.
I can't completely blame them for the skepticism, it was a new idea at the time and many people would've rather stuck with the tried and true rather than titanic financial experiments.
To be clear, the SPD wasn't against social spending. The Ebert-Hilferding finance ministry increased social welfare spending.
But they tried to balance the budget most of the time.