Is there a politics of income inequality? Why are the 90 percent so docile?

We have reached a point in discussions on income inequality in the US where there is practically an unanimous agreement that inequality has widened.  The disagreement is in the "so what?"

One tempting question then is always this: in a democracy where every voter has the same number of votes--one--irrespective of the millions they own or the thousands they owe, then how come the ballot is not used effectively to trigger a greater redistribution?

Once again, Nicholas Lemann provides an insightful book-review essay, in which he concludes:

[That] ninety-nine per cent of Americans are being left behind economically isn’t of much use politically. The ninety-nine per cent is too big a category to be an effective political force. For all that, inequality already is a political cause, though in strange and unexpected ways. ... But if we are to go further—and get the political system to try seriously to reverse the trends of the past thirty years—somebody will have to figure out how to stitch together a coalition of distinct, smaller interest groups that, in their different ways, care deeply about inequality, and, together, can pressure Washington in favor of specific policies. It’s an unlovely business, but if you believe that government is the best instrument with which to address the problem it’s also a morally urgent one.

In other words, it is all a restatement of that classic argument offered by Mancur Olson in The Logic of Collective Action.  I wish Lemann had highlighted Olson's arguments in this context.