(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



The New Gilded Age [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-12-04  

The Gilded Age was, for the very wealth, a splendid time. If you've read Mark Twain’s novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, you can see how, for them, it seemed as if there could be no greater time in history. It was a time of excess, of large mansions, flamboyant parties for people who lived for pleasure. The Breakers , the mansion built by the Vanderbilts, is one of the great symbols of that time of excess. It was the age of the Second Industrial Revolution, with the economy growing like gangbusters, especially in the Northern and Western parts of the country, with skilled workers enjoying huge leaps in wage growth -40% between 1860 and 1890-. The country received millions of European migrants attracted by the high wages in the country. Given that the average annual wage shot up from $380 in 1880 to $584 in 1890, a 59% rise, this is not surprising.

Yet, for the majority of people, this heady period of growth was an era of rising poverty, especially in the South, and growing inequality. For them, the wealthy elites were “robber barons”, not adorable entrepreneurs. In the cultural debris of the wealthy that has remained with us, we have a false memory of an age of prosperity. What it was was an age of poverty and inequality. Many Americans reacted with revulsion. The country passed the Chinese Exclusion Act forbidding Chinese immigration for a decade. There were labour protests and riots, such as the Haymarket riot and the Homestead and Pullman strikes. And the government eventually went after big corporations, passing the Sherman Antitrust Act. In many ways, that mirrors our time. We are living in a period of economic growth, with the gap between America’s wealth and the rest of the world growing, a period of fast rising wages for skilled workers, and yet, it is also a period of poverty and inequality.

Our Age of Wealth and Discontent

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/4/2290256/-The-New-Gilded-Age?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/