It’s déjà vu all over again. The robber barons are back. The wealthy have their cottages by the sea in the Hamptons, in international mansions, and at Mara Lago instead of Newport. Their yachts are shining and staffed while rivers of money flow from the coffers of billionaires who escape paying taxes and offer their obscene wealth in exchange for political favor and power. Clearly, we are once again a nation of prospering oligarchs and exploited paupers.
The glittering Gilded Age that reached its apex between 1880 and 1920 was a golden era of opulent architecture, extravagant fashion, expensive art, and expansive parties. Built on the economic growth that occurred following the Civil War and Reconstruction businessmen and bankers made out like bandits by investing in railroads, factories, and various industries that produced the raw materials needed for the development of innovative inventions that enabled mass production.
That led to “conspicuous consumption,” a term coined by a social critic at the time. Mark Twain, who dubbed the era the “Gilden Age,” was among other critics troubled by the growing disparity between social classes.
While some in the monied class applied their wealth to building libraries, museums and public improvements in large cities (often prodded to do so by their wives), they overlooked the dark side of the needs of those who were on the other end of the social and economic spectrum. For example, they overlooked child labor, dangerous working conditions, and the exploitation of immigrant workers.
The Vanderbilts, Astors, and Carnegies looked the other way, ignoring life in the tenements of New York City and factories like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where the 1911 fire killed 146 trapped young women workers. Journalist and social reformer Jacob Riis brought the reality of these travesties to light in stark photographs of slums, schools, factories, public health, and more in his photographic collection, How the Other Half lives housed at the Library of Congress.
Among today’s most recognized magnates and robber barons are three of the wealthiest and most morally corrupt men in America. Their enormous wealth and lack of social conscience makes their predecessors seem tame.
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post is heavily invested in Uber, AirBnB, and X has a net worth of US$ 236 billion, while Amazon employees earn about $15 an hour despite the physical demands of the job and expectations about productivity. Amazon also continues to ban unions and illegally fires workers for trying to organize them. He also has had workplaces patrolled for signs of unionizing activity. It’s positively Dickensian.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, is heavily invested in SpaceX, and owns X (formerly Twitter). He has Bezos beat in terms of net worth. According to Forbes, which tracks this kind of thing, Musk is worth over $420 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg is the third wealthiest man in America with a net worth of nearly $218 billion. He became a billionaire at the age of 23. Owner of Meta, formerly Facebook, his latest travesty is ending fact checking on his social media platforms and that’s not the worst of it.
Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk are faux philanthropists who donate minimally to various pet organizations. No libraries or museums for them. Just space capsules, AI, and a seat at high tables.
As Lasa Liberator points out, “they are often held up by the media as shining examples of philanthropists, but the reality is none of them has a foundation or philanthropic organization. By donating limited amounts of immense wealth, their public relations people argue they are changing the world for the better. That’s what they would like you to believe. While this philanthropy may seem generous from the outside, it is more often than not a ploy for the world’s wealthiest to dodge taxes, [or a way to]boost their public image, and increase their net worth, all while rarely doing that much actual good “along the way.
These newly anointed oligarchs, and others like them, are wedded to power, prestige, and political influence. They will do anything to curry favor. That makes them dangerous in ways that their forerunners were not, especially in a time of autocracy, patronage, and a good deal of pathology.
In this Gilden Age we are led into a different kind of conspicuous consumption. It’s one that consumes lies and clings to false narratives while ignoring history, facts, and good governance. It overlooks social justice issues like child labor which has made a comeback, as well as exploitive unsafe working conditions, especially for immigrants who mange not to be deported.
It burns the budgets that could help provide adequate housing, better schools, accessible healthcare and vital safety nets. It allows food and water to be contaminated because the ruling class doesn’t have to eat or drink what the lower classes do. It returns women to the Victorian age of silence and servitude.
Today’s robber barons and their elite political allies not only steal dignity and hope; they put us at great risk and conspire against anything that is fair and forward thinking while serving their own selfish purposes. As Eugene Debs put it during the last Gilded Age, “"The time has come to regenerate society [while] we are on the eve of universal change."
# # #
Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.