Railing about inequality is also anti-intellectual, a shortcut for lazy thinkers. “Calculating the size of an equal share of something is generally much easier — a more straightforward and well-defined task — than determining how much a person needs to have enough,” notes Frankfurt.

Actual poverty in America has been vastly diminished in recent decades, which kills a major talking point of the left, but inequality is an evergreen subject. It’ll always be with us and may even increase.

People tend to suspect, rightly, that government intervention in the name of fighting inequality will lead to exactly what’s happened in the Obama era: more inequality, with bureaucrats and their cronies standing to gain.

The first-, second- and fourth-richest counties in the US, and six of the top 10, are suburbs of Washington, DC. Americans have noticed.