Every step towards forcible equality is a step towards totalitarianism.
Instead, examine government policies that hold people back from being free. For example, making it difficult for a business to employ people.
This discussion needs to distinguish equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. People don't mind playing games, but if they perceive the games' rules to be tilted (or some players to be cheating), then they will want to flip the board.
There will always be people who want to "flip the board".
The communists had equal opportunity. It didn't work out so well.
The magic ingredients are:
1. equality under the law
2. freedom
Avoiding totalitarianism means recognizing the need for both public and private power structures counteracting each other, not going all-in on one of them alone.
Also progressive taxation (a moderate position) which avoids the authoritarian measures of both left and right while counteracting the cancerous effects of exponential growth.
Are a lot of people actively and actually suggesting the full removal of inequality? Finding ways to reduce it is a very different thing.