The Gilded Age: The Origin of the Cult of Wealth
The 2nd Industrial Revolution had begun and with it, a rise in concentrated wealth American had not yet seen. The wealthy of this era we still know today: Carnage, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, etc. And as always wealthy men become powerful men. Not that this was new to America. However, unlike such men as Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson, these men never sought public office, and their wealth was national in nature. Not plantations, but industrial monopolies that reached across the country: oil, steel, railroad, etc.[2]
This meant that these titans of industry or, as we would come to know them, robber barons had federal power with none of the restraints of democracy. In other words, they were becoming an aristocracy. And worse, they began to embrace it.
Some did rebuff this idea such as Andrew Carnegie, who preferred to see himself as a self-made man. Many of who I'm talking about also preferred that image. (Some even deserved it.) However, the image presented was contradictory. The wealthy insisted that they had obtained their wealth through talent and luck (even those that inherited it), but at the same time, they insisted they were special and deserved special privileges.
Like all aristocracies, they needed an ideology to justify their superiority. America was founded on the ideas of liberalism and that men were created equal, the very rejection of aristocracy. So, the new ideology of the rich, what I like to call the Cult of Wealth, had to conform to these frameworks. Fortunately, for them, the founding fathers only proposed a political ideology, and the robber barons did not need to talk politics. Instead, they just needed the government to not interfere. Laissez-faire economics is what they proposed.
More importantly, they needed to establish themselves morally. Here they had help from the Puritans, who argued wealth was a sign of faith and poverty was a result of sin. Also, helped was the longstanding American view that a man controlled his own fate, including his economic one. Helping the poor could be seen as enabling and leading them to sin. Baptist Minister Russell Conwell perhaps best exemplified this view. In 1869, he started his "Acres of Diamonds" sermons, out and out equating success with godliness and poverty with sin. Later, even with its calls of noblesse oblige and arguments against inheritance, Andrew Carnegie's "Godspell of Wealth" glorified success and warned against encouraging "the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy".
But the Cult of Wealth went further. This was the 2nd Industrial Revolution, an age of science. Charles Darwin had published Origin of Species in 1859, and it had reached the shores of America to be perverted into Social Darwinism. The successful had proved them as "fitter". Success proved an inherent superior that for the good of American society needed flourish. Not only did this justify selfish arrogance, but brought forth disturbing ideas of racism.
However, there was a reason they called this the Gilded Age, as in only covered by a thin layer of gold. The idea of the self-made man is part of the origin of American, and this period did include some of its best examples. But a man unlucky in circumstances or birth, soon found those opportunities lessening. Monopolies were forming while factories were demanding more hours at lesser pay. To the man struggling to feed his family, his poverty was not the result of sin, but the greed of the rich.
The Gilded Age as much a time of economic turmoil as it was expansion. What later would be called the Long Depression began with the Panic of 1873 and continued until the end of the 19th century.[3] Defined by cycles of booms, where a few would gain wealth and most would not, and busts, where the wealthy kept wealth and the rest lost, Laissez-faire economics was seen as widening the wealth gap and removed opportunities.
A few put down the Wealth of Nations and picked up the Communist Manifesto. Now socialism was too far for most Americans and has never been little more than a fringe movement. However, that did not stop big business and politicians from calling any deviation from Laissez-faire economics, socialism. Fear of socialism would be a commonly used political rhetoric up until, well, today.
Many Americans, however, would accept a compromise. Gaining wealth and property was fine, even encouraged, but someone did have to step in to constrain capitalism's excesses. The seeds of American Progressivism was planted.
This was the beginning of American class warfare.
But, politicians of the Gilded Age remained on the side of business. Both parties mostly argued over who could serve business better. Republicans who controlled most of the Presidency during this period promoted and took credit for the great expansion. The democrats who controlled the House were dominated by the Bourbon Democrats who were strongly pro-business through economic liberalism.
Instead, the progressive politicians were factions in each party and focused on fighting government corruption. The republican factions of Mugwumps and Half-Breeds fought the Stalwarts over government corruption in the form of the spoil system. Bourbon Democrats opposed local corruption in the form of city bosses and supported such reforms as Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
Instead, the fight against the robber barons birthed the first union, the Knights of Labor, later to be replaced by American Federation of Labor. Multiple strikes would happen, often met with violence from their employers, and the government always took the side of business.
All ends and as did the Gilded Age. The three elements of the Cult of Wealth would eventually be discredited as well. Laissez-faire economics would be blamed for the Great Depressions.[4] Poverty as a result of sin would be undone by the rise of Progressivism, and Social Darwinism would become associated with a guy named Hitler.[5]
But, don't be fooled. These ideas never really died. They just got renamed and covered with new gilding. Laissez-faire economics became supply-side and trickle-down economics. Prosperity theology and cries of welfare queens practically quote the "Acre of Diamonds". And those waving their copies of Atlas Shrugged and praising "the job creators" can become Social Darwinist with a slight extension of logic.
Now, those advocating such views have focused on the positive and would surely point out how they are different. You could fairly say I am being biased. Don't worry. I will soon be showing the darker side of Progressivism. For those, who evangelize the Cult of Wealth's latest version, be warned and tread lightly. There are pieces of villainy waiting to be uncovered. Where do you think the infamous "47 percent" speech came from.
