A point was made in an article posted by @chgoliz about instability and its cost to monied interests. I think the article missed a key point: instability is a measurable cost and if you have the option to inflict instability, you inflict cost. That infliction is far more a privilege of monied interests and can be really hard to pin down.
Example: gas station prices fluctuate in my area by 7% a day, easily. The fluctuation alone is going to earn the oil companies a profit.
We have a good gut feel for this kind of cost, but it rarely comes into classical “NPV” economics.
Example: tell your kids that the 10:30pm WiFi cutoff time will now be a uniform random time between 10:00pm and 11:00pm. Try to tell them that, on average, it’s the same. Watch them not believe you for reasons they can’t quite articulate (and certainly not articulate politely). 
My impression is that it’s rare for anyone to account for it when looking at how exposure to uncertainty costs triggers historical unrest. I would imagine that to be a hard variable to put in Hoyer et al.'s databases, but I have to wonder how these Seldon-esque psychohistory efforts might improve their forecasting of unrest, and improve the case for social change, if the cost were included in the measure of inequality.
