Since the 1980s, the gap between the wages for an average worker and the boss of their company has ballooned, as executive pay has boomed and average salaries grown by far less. The average pay ratio between FTSE 100 chief executives and their staff has gone from 20:1 in the 1980s to 129:1 in 2016.
In the US, the situation is far more extreme. The bosses of the top 350 firms in the US earned 312 times more than their workers on average in 2017, up from around 50 to 1 in the 1980s.
Oligarchies never learn
Outrage has been expressed before, but the Disney furore comes as growing numbers of business leaders themselves argue for greater change.
As inequality levels rise in major economies, a fear is developing among business leaders that capitalism could pave the way for its own demise.
Among them is Stephen Schwarzman, a billionaire private equity tycoon and backer of president Donald Trump, who has called for higher minimum wages in the US, and Jamie Dimon, the boss of the US bank JP Morgan Chase, who has said he has no problem in paying higher taxes to tackle inequality.