Why the Gilded Age Was Golden
PragerU
The years 1880 to 1900—coined the Gilded Age—was a period of tremendous growth for American industry and technology. Many also criticize it as a time of greed, corruption, and exploitation of the lower and middle classes by the wealthy. Are we living in a second Gilded Age? Renowned historian Amity Shlaes answers this important question.
This video was made possible through a generous donation from the Robert W. Plaster Foundation.
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Script:
We are living in a second Gilded Age.
That’s the argument of many commentators, especially those who would like to increase taxes on the rich.
Or marshal squadrons of lawyers to mount an antitrust battle against monopolists like Google or Amazon.
The reason the commentators cite the Gilded Age is that that period, 1880 to 1900, had its own Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Jeff Bezos. These were the titans who built up big steel or the railroads.
Our textbooks tell us that those men were robber barons who captured all the wealth.
The robber barons locked in their monopolies, and barred the door to advancement for everybody else. The poor stayed poor, with no opportunity for their children. As economist Henry George wrote at the time, the tendency was for “[...]the rich to become very much richer, the poor to become more helpless and hopeless, and the middle class to be swept away.” The HAVES had everything over the HAVE NOTS. Only antitrust assaults on big companies or new taxes, could make America fairer.
Or so say those textbooks.
But the reality was different. In fact the Gilded Age was a good time for many Americans. Even poor Americans.
The claim that the rich were richer was true: Jay Gould made a fortune in railroads, John D. Rockefeller built the stunningly successful Standard Oil, and Andrew Carnegie’s steel company gave him a net worth as big as a whole country. These men did build giant mansions. And sailed around in yachts.
That the poor
