For many, the era of US history that most resembles contemporary America is easy to identify: the Gilded Age.
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that → resemble → America
Like modern America, the Gilded Age saw a small number of men tower over US politics and industry alike.
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number → see → politics
Rising atop a swell of wealth inequality, figures like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller mixed private interests with public policy, opening doors in Washington and beyond with ease.
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figures → rise → ease
Yet the further we get into the 2020s, the more the comparison to the Gilded Age risks obscuring, rather than enlightening, realities in the US.
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comparison → get → US
But the current situation in the US now dwarfs even the height of the Gilded Age, both in terms of the total levels of wealth inequality brought to bear, as well as the influence this small cohort of men now have.
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cohort → dwarf → men
Rockefeller, the richest of the Gilded Age tycoons, died worth the equivalent of approximately $30bn, adjusted for inflation.
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Rockefeller → die → inflation
The Tesla and Starlink chief may no longer technically be a trillionaire, but he’s now worth approximately $950bn – or more than 30 times what Rockefeller was worth.
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Rockefeller → ’ → what
Of course, the average American is likewise wealthier than their Gilded Age predecessors, even adjusting for inflation, both in nominal terms and purchasing power.
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American → adjust → terms
So perhaps it’s worth examining instead the rate of total American wealth controlled by the current crop of figures.
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it → ’ → figures
As the economist Gabriel Zucman calculated last year, the rate of total US household wealth now attached to the richest 0.00001% in the US is more than double what it was towards the end of the Gilded Age – and that was before Donald Trump returned to the White House, accelerating the US’s wealth inequality.
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Trump → calculate → inequality
Then again, perhaps it’s not simply about the sheer heights of the finances now controlled by a vanishingly small number of Americans.
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it → ’ → Americans
It’s also about how that money can now be used – which is now far beyond any kind of Gilded Age precedent as well.
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which → ’ → precedent
While it’s true that those original robber barons used much of their wealth to target politicians, developments toward the end of the Gilded Age specifically hemmed in this kind of corporate financing of American campaigns.
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developments → ’ → campaigns
These efforts culminated with the passage of the Tillman Act, signed into law by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907, which specifically barred corporate financing of federal politicians.
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which → culminate → politicians
Thanks in large part (but not exclusively) to the Citizens United decision in 2010, US elections remain as open as they’ve ever been to deep-pocketed donors.
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they → remain → donors
Figures like Musk alone have been able to offload hundreds of millions of dollars in pursuit of his own political and financial aims – far beyond anything Rockefeller and his cohort ever dreamed.
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Rockefeller → offload → anything
There’s one other key difference that places this current era beyond even the Gilded Age: the explosion of offshore and financial secrecy tools available at a moment’s notice.
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that → ’ → notice
Thanks to the proliferation of everything from anonymous shell companies to perpetual trusts, these wealthiest forces can now mask their riches from any investigators, regulators, journalists and others – and entrench the kind of aristocracy Americans have long chafed against.
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Americans → mask → aristocracy
Indeed, the combination of collapsing campaign finance regulations and anonymous financial tools led to nearly $2bn in dark, untraceable funds swirling around the US’s most recent election – a reality that even those during the Gilded Age would wonder at.
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those → collapse → Age
But the scope, scale, speed and sheer ease with which wealthy figures can grow, protect and unleash their wealth – and the implications for the future of US democracy – now set this era apart from anything previous.
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figures → grow → anything
And this isn’t even considering the ideological shifts seen within the current crop of America’s wealthiest; where previous figures like Carnegie or Vanderbilt at least seeded universities and libraries, we now have, as Dartmouth’s Brooke Harrington noted, “noblesse without the oblige”.
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Harrington → consider → oblige
And if those wealthy figures would have their way, it’s an era that’s only just beginning.
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that → have → way
The Aporia
