COVID was in many ways the opposite of a reset. It further solidified massive wealth disparity and power concentration. The positive feedback loop doesn’t appear to have a good off-ramp.
The off ramp to the loop was always a crisis like a recession or war. Covid could have been such an example. If the government hadn't bailed everyone out, the pandemic would have been a mass casualty event for companies and their owners. The financial crisis of 2008 also would have been such an event if not for the bailouts. The natural state of the economy is boom and bust, with wealth concentration increasing during the booms and dropping during the busts. But it turns out the busts are really painful for everyone, and so our government has learned how to mostly keep them from happening. Turns out people prefer the ever increasing concentration of wealth an power that this results in over the temporary pain of economic depression.
