If you look at previous eras of great wealth inequality such as the French revolution or the events leading up to the New Deal, the working classes were despera

If you look at previous eras of great wealth inequality such as the French revolution or the events leading up to the New Deal, the working classes were desperate enough to rise up. Either through force, or through sufficient threat of force they brought about changes that restored some balance to the system. Nowdays, particularly in America, there is enough wealth to go around such that nobody is really that desperate. The masses are sufficiently pacified, but not so secure that they get funny ideas or opt to drop out and become hippies. We've got them exactly where we want them. So long as no substantial portion of the population goes hungry for more than 3 days everything is cool. There's other things that have been working well. The ongoing threat of terrorism, black people, and mass surveillance keeps people in their place. Replacing mainstreet with wal-mart, increasing secularism, and the killing off of local media outlets with the internet is very useful for destroying community cohesiveness. It all helps to cultivate the perception that if everything goes to hell, you are alone in the universe and no one will help you. Unless some unknown unkown emerges to throw this all out of balance, there won't be any meaningful pushback, and the 99% will continue to serve us as a natural resource to be exploited.