You’ve probably heard of the “Gilded Age” and it’s notorious robber barons or probably remarketed today as “captains of industry”. One of the intriguing things that is occurring today is the similar rise of the “tech titans” that seemingly control vast amounts of wealth in the same respects as it did. We might be approaching the same level of wealth inequality and levels of working dissatisfaction that we did back then (too general but I’ll explain below). History might not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. My main question to today’s problem is/was: How do we change it?
Anyway, in my short research on this issue, I truly wondered how we as a country and people got out of those eras and into the next ones. This combines a bit of social history and general history, so you might have to bear with me.
The Gilded Age and the Age of the Robber Barons lasted from the era of the end of the Civil War until the Great Depression. This included The Civil War and Reconstruction, Westward Expansion, Industrialism and the era of Railroads and transportation, World War 1, the Roaring 20’s and then culminated in the Great Depression and the Progressive Age. It makes a lot of sense when you think of the era of development but let’s explore generally.
The era of the Civil War brought the production capabilities and the war machine into focus as the robber barons began to take shape. There have always existed levels of inequalities in society between the rich and the poor, and early America was no different as people sought their fortunes. During the Civil War, weapons manufacturing and transportation began a sophisticated level of mass industrialization to get soldiers and logistics squared away. These began the basis of the Robber Baron Age, where people began to cultivate vast amounts of wealth building and guarding the transportation levels of the country. Favorable government contracts, lobbying, corruption and more was rampant and allowed many of the Robber Barons to begin the graft that was famous for its age (Tammany Hall anyone?). Politicians and others were bought and paid for, and famously worked for the interests of the rich and powerful with blatant corruption and obfuscation of public good.
After these systems stabilized, the development of Westward expansion and the takeover of the country contributed to these wealth systems. The US was a young country, ready with land claims and production capabilities, so the ability to exploit this was critical to the developing wealth of the country. Combine that with the rapid rise in technology which leads us to the next phase or the “Industrialization Age”. As Robber Barons began to control and mature the underlying systems behind these industries-coal, oil, steel, railroads, and whatever else contributed to these, we begin to see the rapid rise of the disparity between the levels of wealth.
This also produced more societal push back, as people fought against unjust company towns and scripts, and laws were enacted to prevent those in power from abusing workers. From roughly 1860-1900, the levels of wealth disparity, inequality and corruption were finally too much for the system to bear. The level of food instability, worker instability and rights push back finally allowed the people and the social system to even and equal itself out to levels that were now finally justifiable. This isn’t taught much in history, but the “Battle of Blair Mountain” and the bombing of Black Wall Street and other similar events were equated with the levels of disparity and rise of worker pushback and results.
This ushered in the time known as the “Progressive Era”, where society and public offices realized the problems and began to reflect on the harm of the wealth disparities. Society had realized that the levels of disparity had gone too far for the country to accept. New laws were created and the beginning of the end of the Robber Barons was in sight, if not by society, by their own hands during Black Friday and worse as the depression began.
Teddy Roosevelt famously began the campaign to bring the US into equality as national parks were conceived, the other Roosevelt around WW2 instituted minimum wage and other various levels of building, infrastructure and investment into public goods and works. By breaking down the previous system it equalized many people to levels of wealth and created jobs and usage.
The Term Robber Baron comes from the fact that these people would do unscrupulous acts to gain wealth. Exploiting workers, people, corruption, pay offs, and the like were the norm during these times. Even during areas of economic uncertainty-like World War 1 or stock panics as the market began its infancy, there was never anything that contributed to a true check or shake to the system. Even after the War and the Spanish flu epidemic that produced the Roaring 20’s, the system of corruption and graft raged on as the social system closed in. The War more than likely played into their hands as they could produce weapons and more for other countries without risking damaging their systems internally. The Roaring 20’s, as much as it’s known for it’s decadence and lavishness, contributed to the Great Depression by pushing the economic envelope just enough for it to finally break, those in power and wealth not realizing how fragile their system truly became.
The stock market crash and the Great Depression were the actual check to their system and the end of the “Gilded Age”. Many Robber Barons lost their wealth and fortunes during this time, as well as aging out of their primes and dying. Instituting those policies for social good ended the choke hold of the Robber Barons and began the protection of the people. The surprising thing to me is that the social reform actually worked. People got sick of the disparity and did something about it. It took about 40 years to rise and another 20 to fully work, but something was done. ALSO to note that the ending of the era began with the deaths of most of those Robber Barons. That money dispersed to the next generation who either lost it as well or continued the growth but most likely not at the same rate as their famous fathers.
This also famously brought about the “Baby Boomers” which was one of the best times in American history in terms of social economics and the creation of the middle class and the spread of goods, jobs, workers and more. The reform machine worked, as congress and other governing bodies began to realize the value of the country and people. World War 2 also contributed to the economic machine, again allowing factories to produce goods and land terms for production and building that kept the United States largely out of internal conflict and allow it to control many foreign aspects after winning the war.
There’s a famous statement I like to think of:
“Strong men create good times. Good times create Weak men. Weak men create Hard times. Hard times create Strong men.”
Now, paraphrasing history in a nutshell as above we can look at our current timeline. It took roughly 60 years or so for the economic machine to break under the rules and laws of the wealth disparity. Once corrected, it lasted for let’s say a good 30-40 years. Obviously we had issues with the social movement and other forms of equality but the country was trending in the right direction for a period of time. Once might say the beginning of our current disparity began with Regan and his era of deregulation. The “trickle down effect” is pretty much obviously proven to be good for the wealthy, and his deregulation of the market and business only increased the disparity of the system that was put into place many years before to keep it in line. Our history goes through many eras of depression and differential shocks, but as we keep building, we see that we’re approaching another peak. With the new titans like Bezos, Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, etc, we are seeing the rise of the new Robber Barons that control the industries and unproportionable amounts of wealth. The wealthy paid taxes at a rate of 91% in the 40s and 50s, arguably one of the best times for our country in terms of spreading that wealth around. I think Amazon got an actual return on its tax return last year. Gates owns untold amounts of land and wealth while the WEF claims in 10 years we’ll “own nothing and love it”. Uhhhh sure.
So now at our zenith of inequality and economic disparity, we see the next rise in the system. Another medical epidemic, with a potential roaring 20’s almost exactly similar 100 years later and another unstable market system with the wealthy controlling too much money and power. It still took another 10 years or so to crash, followed by a good 5 years of a depression, and then a war and economic output to produce a recovering economy. 1880 and 1980 weren’t actually that much different when you think about it, and now as we approach 2022-1922 is a pretty good building block to look at how we’re going to see the future approach. MAYBE 2030-2040 is finally when we get our act together and 2050 will be the next era of roses for our children. That’s if we’re lucky and global warming and nuclear warfare haven’t reset the timeline back to the stone ages. If not, then I guess we can wait for Gates and Bezos to Die-they’re older after all, and then only have to deal with Zuckerberg and Musk. Who knows?