“ This runaway at the top is different from other periods of great inequality, like the late 1800s. Back then, the Robber Barons may have kept money due to monopoly advantages and their power over workers. All the while they were adding to GDP by building oil and steel giants, railroads, and mass production companies from chewing gum to cars.
Jeff Madrick, “America’s new robber barons”
This is a point that probably isn’t made often enough in discussions about America’s wealth-disparity crisis. The 19th century robber barons were greedy bastards whose treatment of workers was inexcusable. But they built stuff (including much of this country’s essential infrastructure), advanced technologies, created millions of jobs and even wedged open the door for entrepreneurs. Today’s stock-option compensated executives and investment industry fatcats make their money by eliminating “waste” (aka jobs and job-generating expenditures) or by gambling with tricked-out financial instruments that have a whole lot more in common with Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme than your standard common stock share. The new robber barons are much, much worse.
(Source: nybooks.com)
