An unequal society, can be best defined as a society in which the opportunity for advancement, the justice so implemented and imposed, and the distribution of the wealth of that society, is skewed heavily in the favor of a small cadre of individuals and institutions, to the overall detriment of the people, at large. While it is a given that there will never truly be an equal society, in the sense, that all have exactly the same as everyone else – it has to be recognized that the objective of the exercise is to see fairly represented that all those that are denizens of that society are afforded not only equal protection under the laws, but also are at liberty, of free will, and therefore are autonomous individuals, so proven by their ability to be about their business per their own volition, of which both unfair barriers to entry as well as private sector monopolistic institutions would not be permitted to exist within that society.
As they say, the proof is in the eating of the pudding, and when we look at countries such as the United States of America, we see that rather than the people becoming ever more secure in their income, their employment, and their opportunities, that instead, this country is becoming more and more to be a nation, in which, the elites, the biggest multinational corporations, and the wealthy, essentially “boss” it over all the other people. In other words, despite the incredible amount of wealth, that America represents, as in its being the richest nation that the world has ever known, that distribution of wealth, along with its incumbent power, is essentially held in the hands of the few. So too, while the political process of America, is democratic, in form, the upshot of such, is that the well connected are able to consistently get whatever that they so desire to have, by deliberately manipulating the narrative in order to support their objectives at the expense of the people.
In an unequal society, it isn’t good enough to simply have the vote, when the choices so presented to the people, are, in essence, no choice, at all. When there are but two major political parties, that hold all of the cards, that are fully supported wholeheartedly by mainstream media of all sorts, and of which, those that are the candidates in that political process are beholden to those that control the levers so held over them in the background, then all the people will typically get from such, are platitudes and empty promises, and never substantial change or improvement. The very fact that America continues to be so unequal, is proof positive, that democracy does not and cannot work in unequal societies, which thus signifies that this is clearly not a government, of, for, and by the people, at all.
Remember this well, if every vote and every person in America, actually was valued exactly the same, then it could not conceivably be possible that the three wealthiest billionaires would have as much wealth as the entire bottom half of the United States population, combined -- because the voting population of the bottom half of America would absolutely crush the mere three votes of those wealthiest billionaires. Yet, here we sit, unequal, and with that inequality getting ever progressively worse, because our institution of democracy, has been fundamentally captured by those powerful elites that effectively run this nation.