Second Gilded Age

Last updated

The Second Gilded Age is a controversial proposed time period of United States history that is proposed to have begun between the 1980s and 2010s up to the current day. The Second Gilded age is so named for its resemblance to the Gilded Age of the 1870s to 1890s, a period marked by laissez-faire capitalism and political corruption. Different authors disagree over what time period constitutes the Second Gilded Age, while others argue that no such period exists.

Contents

Proposals of the Second Gilded Age started with the junk bonds scandal of the 1980s, the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, the collateralized-debt obligations of the 2000s, or the 1 percent of the 2010s. These proposals largely agree that wealth inequality and political corruption were as rampant as in the First Gilded Age. Others argue that race relations and civil rights comparisons are more apparent. [1]

Critics of the Second Gilded Age often argue that the similarities are largely surface level. Critics argue that the underlying causes differ, and thus the underlying solutions must differ as well. [1]

Causes

Authors and historians often cite shareholder primacy as one of the main factors of the Second Gilded Age. Shareholder primacy has been criticized for putting the needs of owners over the needs of workers. [2]

Comparisons

Economics

The Second Gilded Age has seen an increase in wealth inequality due in part to the Great Recession and in part due to deregulation stemming from the Reagan era. [3]

Many authors draw comparisons between the obscene fortunes of Gilded Age figures such as William Randolph Hearst and Second Gilded Age figures such as Elon Musk, both men who took control of media empires in order to push political agendas. Where Hearst took control of newspapers, Musk took control of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Hearst and Musk have both been criticized for using their newly acquired empires to spread misinformation and antisemitism. [4]

Politics

The Gilded Age was a time of rampant political corruption, and many authors have compared it to the corruption of the modern day. "Bailout billionaires" have been accused of purchasing politicians, using dark money and super PACs as vehicles for buying elections. [1] [5]

Civil Rights

Some authors have pointed out comparisons between the loss of civil rights after the Reconstruction Era and the stripping of civil rights in the modern day. The Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in 1883, just as they gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, in both cases helping to strip Black Americans of the right to vote. While the legal discrimination of Jim Crow has been overturned, still today, a de facto racist criminal justice system still overlooks or enables police racial discrimination. [1] [6]

Xenophobia continued to gain legal protections in the First Gilded Age, finally culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, fully banning immigration from most of East and South Asia until being overturned during the civil rights era. This approach has been compared with Obama, Trump, and Biden era policies on immigration through the US-Mexico border such as Remain in Mexico. Trump further instituted travel bans from 15 countries, until they were overturned by Biden. [1]

Criticism

The term "Second Gilded Age" has been met with some criticism. Critics argue that the term is much more about surface-level similarities than it is about material conditions or political forces.

The First Gilded Age coincided with America's Second Industrial Revolution, as America moved from the use of coal to being powered by oil, thanks in large part to the efforts of captains of industry such as John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. Some authors have argued that the Second Gilded Age remains a time of deindustrialization, as working-class wages continue to fall and workers turn to the gig economy. [1]

Related Research Articles

A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the creation or ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or services are widely consumed. Such individuals have been known by different terms throughout history, such as robber barons, captains of industry, moguls, oligarchs, plutocrats, or tai-pans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilded Age</span> Era of US history from the 1870s to 1900s

In United States history, the Gilded Age is described as the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after an 1873 Mark Twain novel. Historians saw late 19th-century economic expansion as a time of materialistic excesses marked by widespread political corruption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> South African-born businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world; as of August 2024 Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$247 billion.

Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally means "voice of the people." It is used in English in the meaning "the opinion of the majority of the people." In journalism, vox pop or man on the street refers to short interviews with members of the public.

<i>The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today</i> 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner first published in 1873. It satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. Although not one of Twain's best-known works, it has appeared in more than 100 editions since its original publication. Twain and Warner originally had planned to issue the novel with illustrations by Thomas Nast. The book is remarkable for two reasons—it is the only novel Twain wrote with a collaborator, and its title very quickly became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in public life. The novel gave the era its nickname: the period of U.S. history from the 1870s to about 1900 is now referred to as the Gilded Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robber baron (industrialist)</span> Term of social criticism for unethical, wealthy businessmen

Robber baron is a term first applied as social criticism by 19th century muckrakers and others to certain wealthy, powerful, and unethical 19th-century American businessmen. The term appeared in that use as early as the August 1870 issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. Those practices included unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors to create monopolies and/or trusts that control the market, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors. The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (“baron”) in a republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third Party System</span> Phase in U.S. electoral politics (1856–1896)

The Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period was marked by the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery in the United States, followed by the Reconstruction era and the Gilded Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla, Inc.</span> American electric vehicle and clean energy company

Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Gensler</span> American banker (born 1957)

Gary S. Gensler is an American government official and former investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously worked for Goldman Sachs and has led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corruption in the United States</span>

Corruption in the United States is the act of government officials abusing their political powers for private gain, typically through bribery or other methods, in the United States government. Corruption in the United States has been a perennial political issue, peaking in the Jacksonian era and the Gilded Age before declining with the reforms of the Progressive Era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Boring Company</span> American infrastructure and tunneling company

The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction services, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. TBC has completed one tunneling project that is open to the public, as well as multiple test tunnels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuralink</span> American neurotechnology company

Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that has developed, as of 2024, implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). It was founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers. Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017. The company is based in Fremont, California with plans to build a three-story building with office and manufacturing space near Austin, Texas in Del Valle, located about 10 miles east of Tesla's headquarters and manufacturing plant that opened in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla Roadster (second generation)</span> Upcoming electric sports car from Tesla

The Tesla Roadster is an upcoming battery electric four-seater sports car to be built by Tesla, Inc. The company said it will be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, which would be quicker than any street legal production car to date at its announcement in November 2017. The Roadster is the successor to Tesla's first production car, the 2008 Roadster.

Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Tesla, Inc.</span> Systemic criticism of Tesla, Inc. and its products and leadership

Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optimus (robot)</span> Humanoid robot being developed by Tesla

Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, is a general-purpose robotic humanoid under development by Tesla, Inc. It was announced at the company's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day event on August 19, 2021, and a prototype was shown in 2022. CEO Elon Musk stated in 2022 that he thinks Optimus "has the potential to be more significant than [Tesla's] vehicle business over time." Media and expert opinions based on corporate showcases have been mixed.

Nolan Higdon is a critical media literacy scholar and media personality. He is also an author and university lecturer of history, education, and media studies. Higdon is a lecturer at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon is considered an expert in critical media literacy, podcasting, digital culture, higher education, journalism, fake news, and news media history. Higdon is frequently featured as an expert voice in documentaries and news outlets such as ABC, CBS, CNBC, NewsNation, NBC, New York Times, PBS, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech, framing the acquisition as the cornerstone of X, an "everything app".

The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Huyssen, David (April 1, 2019). "We won't get out of the Second Gilded Age the way we got out of the first". Vox.com. Vox Media. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
  2. ↑ Berger, Chloe (October 24, 2024). "'We are essentially in a new Gilded Age': As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits". Fortune. Fortune. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  3. ↑ Matthews, Dylan (August 8, 2017). "You're not imagining it: the rich really are hoarding economic growth". Vox.com. Vox Media. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
  4. ↑ "Elon Musk and oligarchs of the 'Second Gilded Age' can both sway public, exploit their data". Ohio Capital Journal. States Newsroom. April 29, 2022. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
  5. ↑ Kaiser, Charles (January 17, 2016). "Dark Money review: Nazi oil, the Koch brothers and a rightwing revolution". The Guardian. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
  6. ↑ O'Donnel, Edward (11 September 2023). "Are We Living in the Gilded Age 2.0 ?". History.com. History. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.