WEBVTT - Robber Barons! 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:04.800 Hello friends, we have a book coming out finally and 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.240 it is awesome. You're gonna make me say the title again. Yeah, fine, 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.039 it's Stuff you Should Know colon An Incomplete Compendium of 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.760 mostly interesting Things. And get this chuck. You don't have 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.119 to wait to order until the book comes out. You 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.600 can do what we in the book biz called pre 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.560 ordering it, and then when it does come out, you'll 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.280 be the first to get it, or among the first. Well. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.400 And not only that, you get a pre order gift, 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.800 you get this cool custom poster from the illustrator of 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.080 the book, Carli Monardo, who is awesome. 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Now 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.160 welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:23.400 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.920 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chucker's Bryant over there. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.080 Jerry was just here doing the COVID set up and 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.320 then got out of the room really quick, held her 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.880 breath for five straight minutes. It's a new record, it really, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.840 It's a new studio record. Sure. Uh, and this is 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.679 stuff you should know. That's that's no David Blaine record, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.000 by the way. No, I mean that's our studio record. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.960 You should see her when she's pearl diving though, right, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.680 wouldn't that be something If Jerry did have a secret 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:58.800 life pearl diving, that would be amazing, it would um. 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.440 But we're not talking about Jerry Chuck enough about her. Instead, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.680 I propose that we have a nice, pleasant conversation about 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:12.120 robber barons. Yeah, this is an interesting topic because depending 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:18.160 on who you ask, the robber barons were either the 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.520 greatest thing to ever happen to this country, right, or 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.760 one of the worst things to ever happen to this country. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.000 And at first, from what I could tell, historians, like 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:33.400 immediately after in the like a few decades after UM, 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.120 the Gilded Age, which we'll talk about where the you know, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.720 the age the robber barons worked and operated and lived 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.680 in UM really took it to be like their their presence, 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.960 their existence was one of the worst things ever. But 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.519 over time there's kind of been a reformation of them, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.560 you know, kind of like a revisiting of them that 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.960 has tried to to to revive their images or actually 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.720 make their images possibly better than it ever has been. Yeah, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.079 I mean it kind of I think a lot that 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.960 this has to probably depends on what you feel about, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.600 you know, capitalism to this extent where kind of doesn't 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.880 matter how you make your money, if it's sort of 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:16.680 underhanded and you sort of undercut competitors and monopolize things, 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.240 that's all just free trade man, free capitalism, and that's 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.680 how it works out. And then those guys ton of 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:27.400 gave a ton of money to society before they died, 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.280 and so they that's that's all. Uh, that in justifies 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:36.560 the means. Yeah, I actually that Yeah, that's the conservative 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.320 way to look at it. UM. And I ran across 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.279 something camera was called, but it's basically, oh, human imperfection. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.480 Did you know that the idea that humans are imperfect 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.920 and there's really no reason to try to make a 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.320 perfect society because it will always be imperfect and in 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:01.000 ruin um that that is a corner stone, a hallmark 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:06.320 of conservativism. Did you know that? Uh? I didn't, But 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.000 I mean, of course you can't make a perfect society. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.240 That makes sense. Well there, what so conservatives are saying 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.359 that in opposition to all of the liberal um efforts 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.240 to make a perfect society, to have government regulation that 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:22.240 says no, no, we should all have clean water and 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.400 we should do it at the expense of making corporations 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.640 clean up the waste water before they they release their 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:33.640 waste into the the shared common water resources. Things like that, right, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.520 And that there's this idea that you can you can 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:42.640 mold society into some perfect form, that that's the opposite 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.480 of human imperfection, that that's like what liberals think, and 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.160 that that is that right there is one of the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.400 main dividing lines between conservative and liberal. I've been on 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.039 the planet for almost forty four years now, and I 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.359 had no idea that it was just that simple, and 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.640 it really kind of this. I think the word perfect 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.360 is what's a stumbling block for me because I don't 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.760 know a single liberal thinks that they can make things perfect. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.560 I think the goal is to make things better. Yeah, yeah, agreed. 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.040 I don't know that it's it's a great word either, 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.159 but I think that that's you know, I mean, hey, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.640 you're gonna argue with the Stanford Encyclopedia philosophy, I'm not. 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.039 I'll bring it on, man, I'll punch that thing right 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.360 in the face. Speaking of Stanford, did you know that 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:31.800 Stanford University was named Yeah, a robber Baron named Leland Stanford. Actually, yeah, 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.760 a lot of universities are named after robber Baron's. Yeah. 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.719 There's a lot of problems with some of the early 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.599 histories of of universities, as we'll find out in the 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.480 coming weeks. So we should get into the gilded Age. 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.479 We should hop in the old way back machine, because 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.520 that's the age that we're talking about. And when you 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:53.320 hear guilded age, it might sound really great because I mean, 0:05:53.360 --> 0:06:00.560 what's better than a gilded I don't know, toilet gilded lily. 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.880 Isn't that another one? That another thing people guild. I 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.440 don't know. That's a pretty good band name though, Gilded Lily, Yeah, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.240 like a nineties power pop. Oh, totally, you nailed it. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:17.359 Not said what about breakfast, said Tiffany's. But the Gilded 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.000 Age is. And Dave Russe helped us put this together, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:21.880 and he points out it's not a term of endearment. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.719 When something is gilded, that means it's it's got a 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.560 thin coating of gold, but underneath it's you know, it 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.520 could be a gilded tird. Sure, I hate that word 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.839 so much. I love it. It's so great. Yeah, I 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.320 mean I hate I love it and how awful it is, 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.640 Oh gotcha, But I think it's so awful it like 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.080 comes out on the other side is just plain old 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.680 awful to me. So um, yeah, that's the that's the 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.120 idea of the guilded Age, that it looked great on 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.360 the outside, but on the inside it wasn't so great, 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.920 and when it was so This was the second half 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.840 of the nineteenth century, basically from pretty much the end 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.960 of the Civil War up until the first decade of 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:10.520 the twentieth century, and it was characterized by a huge, 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:17.200 massive shift in the American economy where I saw somewhere 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.600 that at some point in the eighteen sixties to some 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.200 point in the early eighteen eighties and about fifteen years, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:28.320 the American economy doubled doubled in size in fifteen years. 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.720 That's how massive it was, and that's how fast it happened. 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.080 And what it was was a transition from an agrarian 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.880 society to an industrial society. And it happened virtually overnight 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.680 as far as history goes. Yeah, and it was because 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.400 it happened so quickly and because it was such growth, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.480 I think the government was like, we're going to stay 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.240 out of this and kind of just let you your 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.840 dudes do what you're gonna do. No regulation. Uh, you 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.360 can be as competitive as you want to be, and 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.240 you can satisfy scratch every capitalist it you want, and 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.560 we're just gonna let that happen because we're also kind 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.800 of getting rich on the side. Right, So that kind 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.120 of raises something that I saw is that the idea 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.840 that that it's kind of like a myth of the 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.040 las a fair government. During this era, they were definitely 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.120 las fair when it comes to regulation and letting corporatists 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.480 run rough shot over labor. But they were anything butt 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.720 hands off when it came to corporate welfare and political 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:35.640 entrepreneurship and helping out the wealthy class at the expense 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.800 of the people in general. So in one hand, on 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.920 one hand, they were las fair, on the other they 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.200 were not. Yeah, and what we're talking about here is 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.440 uh stuff like um snatching up resources where you could 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.680 hoarding them for yourself under like building such a massive 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:57.679 business that you could drive out every other smaller business, Uh, 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.480 drive them right out of business by undercutting prices. Uh, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.640 jobs were more scarce, so you could have people work 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.040 harder for less and less wages. That kind of thing, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.760 right exactly. And what's crazy, Like it was a dog 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:18.640 eat dog economy. Um, it was just nuts how it happened. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.920 And there was a lot of like learning on the fly, 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.000 and the learning curve was extremely steep because I mean 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.760 this was just basically a country of farmers who had 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.880 been you know, looked down upon by Europe for a 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.240 century or more, and they all of a sudden were 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.960 captains of industry, and the most ruthless among them were 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:41.920 the ones that rose to the top. Because, like you're saying, 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.920 there was no rules, there was no regulation, there weren't 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.760 any standards of business. They were all figuring it out 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.440 as they were going along, and they went immediately to 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.720 the worst impulses that capitalism can can raise in a 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.280 person when you're in pursuit of as much possible wealth 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.240 as you can get, and there's plenty of it to 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.880 be had. And then, like you're saying, not only did 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.400 the federal government not get involved, they weren't equipped to 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.880 get involved because at that point, most of the government 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.880 was focused on local stuff. And now all of a sudden, 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.400 as as the United States is truly becoming a continent 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.320 wide nation, um, the federal government is kind of lagging 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.520 behind to catch up. It wouldn't really begin to catch 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.000 up in the progressive era. And some would say that 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.439 the pendulum swung the exact opposite way to the exact 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.720 opposite extreme direction that it had during the guilded Age. Yeah, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.200 I mean, let's let's talk about the guilded Age and 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.040 the I guess just you owe it all the trains 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.360 really and trains you owe to steal, so you gotta 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:47.040 go back a little bit. Uh. Steel was a very 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:51.240 big deal, uh in that when they found out Mr 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.280 Henry Bessemer in the eighteen fifties found out how to 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:58.199 make steal like a lot cheaper. He got a new 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.079 process going where it was just like a making vast 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.640 amounts of steel for a fraction at the cost and speed, 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.280 and all of a sudden, you could open up those 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.440 local rail lines to stretch across the country and all 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:16.640 these regional, um specialty businesses and industries, whether it was uh, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.920 you know, Cincinnati was known for furniture, and obviously in 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.520 places like Wyoming you had coal, and you had copper 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.120 and Montana and you had a lot of timber and Oregon. 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.520 You could get that stuff anywhere you wanted to go, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.439 and that changed everything. Yeah, not only could you get 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:33.800 it to where you wanted to go, you could do 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.240 it exponentially cheaper than it used to be overland or 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.040 stay using canals, and then also way faster too. So 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.840 now if you were making like really great arm chairs 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.000 and Cincinnati, like you were saying, like, not only did 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.959 you have the town that they're just known for it, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:57.079 that's their mascot, I believe of the baseball team sitters right, Um, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.040 not only did you have the town of Cincinnati and 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.480 maybe some other regional parts of Ohio as your market 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.280 you know, hawd the entire country to supply with chairs, 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.439 and that that happened at a really great time, the 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.360 steel coming along and building the railroads, because the United 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.480 States economic engine was kind of idoling a really high 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.560 rpm for a little while before this. Apparently the War 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.480 of eighteen twelve caused the United States to kind of 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.160 stop relying on Europe and turn inward and become much 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.599 more self reliant than it had been before. So it 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:34.120 started to exploit more industry and resources rather than rely 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.360 on imports from Europe. That was a big one. And then, um, 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.000 the Civil War had brought a lot of factories online 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.800 in the North that hadn't been there before, and so 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.040 when the Civil War ended, these factories were all ready 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.880 to go. And with the abundance of plentiful steel, that 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.520 that that that engine got put into gear and it 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.439 just kind of took off like a rocket. Yeah. When 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.080 I was reading this and I tried to find out, 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.640 but I couldn't really get a firm hold. I wondered 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.960 if back then, when this started to happen, you know 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.960 how people rail against global trade and the globalization. I 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.400 wonder if people railed against nationalization of commerce back then 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.520 or if they all just thought it was all great. No. No. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.120 But one of the things I read about that's actually 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.000 a mark in favor of the Gilded Age being uh, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:26.320 actually a good thing for America is that people everyday 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.640 people were super involved in politics and the political process 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.920 and agitating for what they wanted. And so if there 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.560 were people who were definitely in favor of this kind 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.560 of just taking off like a rocket, knitting the country together, 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.120 that kind of stuff, nationalization, then there was definitely opposition 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.280 parties to that too who saw the problems with it. 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:49.560 But the cool thing is is that everybody was involved 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.240 in Everybody was like like like they cared about the 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.200 direction the country was going, rather than just sitting back 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.200 and being like, well, nothing we can do about it. 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.120 I wonder though, if it was like if there were business, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.640 like if they were furniture makers in Cincinnati going, I 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.319 don't want to sell my chairs out there. That is 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.880 not what they said like in Cincinnati. Is that not 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.640 the Cincinnati accident? No, Okay, I might be thinking of Maine, right, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.120 But I wonder if I wonder who was opposing it. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.280 I don't know, I don't know. I haven't seen that one. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.280 Some of the things that I saw where one of 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.320 the big fights was over currency and whether it should 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.080 remain on the gold standard or whether it should be 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.840 easy money, which, of course the so the farmers wanted. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.840 I think they wanted easy money. I can't remember who 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.560 wanted to stay on the gold standard and others wanted, 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.120 you know, um basically, to to leave the gold standard 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.360 and make money a lot more um easy to come by. 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.840 The runny Dangerfield movie. That was an easy easy money. Man. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:15:00.680 That's a tawdry movie, wasn't it. Yeah, that's good though. Yeah, hey, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.960 even the worst danger Field movie still pretty great. And 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.720 on that point real quick, I'm sorry, Um. I know 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.840 we don't like to go off on tangents very often. Um, 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:17.400 but I have been watching Happy Days, I mean surely lately. Man. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.560 That is some comfort food, isn't it, Dude? They are? 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.520 But not only that, it's not like junk food though. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.720 They're like well written, well acted, well directed TV shows. 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.600 Like really, it's not at all like throwaway or disposable. 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.000 It doesn't rely on slick special effects or anything like that. 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.680 It's just good stuff. Man. Yeah, I agree, And you 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.040 know what, since we're on this tangent, we should tell 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.040 everyone that we're writing a book and it's coming out 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.240 this fall. Yeah, it's called Stuff you Should Know, an 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.800 incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. And you can preorder 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.080 it now if you want a special system poster. Yeah, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.880 you preorder it and you can go and upload your 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.400 receipt at stuff you Should Read books dot com and 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.280 then there's like a little thing that says like your 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.240 pre order gift, and you upload a picture of your 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.880 seat and they mail it to you and you will 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.960 be very happy with it because it's pretty awesome. Yeah, 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.400 and we want to sell We do want to sell 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.600 these books out there. We want to sell these books 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.960 all over the world. Yes, we're glad that the railroad 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.640 exists so we can move these books around easily. Oh man, 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:24.800 you make kidding. Ship these things to Cincinnata, right, So 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.280 where were we So we were shipping things regional businesses. 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.560 We're becoming national businesses. People were leaving the farms, they 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:34.800 were leaving small towns. They were going to the big city. 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:39.480 Immigrants were pouring in from Europe. African Americans were going 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.480 north because reconstruction didn't work out so well, because it 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:48.320 was not abandoned. Yeah, yeah, have we done one on reconstruction. No, no, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.800 we really need to though totally. I mean the more 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.640 I've been I've been reading a lot about that that 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.040 period in history, and yes, we need to definitely do 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.400 one on that. But the point is there are a 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.960 lot of people flocking to work this uh, what was 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.439 called the Second Industrial Revolution where we saw a a 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.960 period of about forty years, factory output went from one 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.400 point nine billion to thirteen billion dollars, right, I mean, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:17.840 like this happened like almost overnight. It's it's astounding how 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.080 fast this happened. Um, I don't think it even happened 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.720 this fast in the First Industrial Revolution, you know, the 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.040 one that that um started over in Manchester. Like I 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.080 think that it's this is nothing like this has ever 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:31.800 happened in the history of the world. As far as 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:37.479 I know, I believe it. So um oh sure, I 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.400 was just getting wrapped up my own economic engines idling 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.320 high right now, Well, take your foot off the gas 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:45.480 and let's take a little break and we'll talk a 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.159 little bit about Mark Twain and uh what these a 0:17:49.160 --> 0:18:15.720 few economic stats of the day right after this. Yeah, alright, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.280 we're back, Charles. I'm feeling much better now that my 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.120 foots off. The guess that was this good advice. Well, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.480 we we mentioned Mark Twain, And the only reason we're 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.119 going to talk about Mark Twain for a moment is 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.240 because in eighteen seventy three he co wrote a novel. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.639 It's a satire called The Gilded Age Colon, a Tale 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:38.119 of Today, where it followed a poor country farmer who 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.840 is sort of I mean, does he move to the 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.680 city trying to get in on the Second Industrial Revolution? Yeah, totally. 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.160 It's it's exactly that kind of migration that you're talking 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.320 about just a few minutes ago. And it didn't work 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.320 out so well, right, I don't know, I've never read 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.040 the book, but from from what I can tell, um, no, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.600 it didn't work out very well because he is taking 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.760 advantage of by all manner of bad people like crooked 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:09.600 politicians and crooked businessmen, um. And it is basically run 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.480 through the ringer from what I can tell. But for 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.480 I've also seen that that wasn't it wasn't exactly the 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.360 best piece of writing Mark Twain's ever come up with. 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.199 But the thing is that he releases in eighteen seventy three, 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.159 and this is like at the very beginning of the 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.760 Gilded Age. So he saw it pretty quickly what was 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:33.600 going on. And what he saw was this emergence from 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:41.280 a relatively egalitarian society of a group of ultra mind 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.919 bogglingly wealthy people that just rose up from the United 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:52.760 States and through you know, cheating and business acumen and 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.960 taking advantage of people and overworking people and underpaying people, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.680 but also like having a lot of vision and foresight, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.720 all the these things coming together grab control of almost 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.919 all of the wealth that was being produced by the 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.159 average American, and all of the average Americans put together, 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.439 who had moved to these cities for the promise of 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.920 better wages, better living than the farm could offer. Some 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.640 people were exploiting that more than other people, and those 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.800 people came to be known as the robber barons, and 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.280 they were the lynch pin of why people think of 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.360 the Gilded Age as a rotten part of American history. Yeah, 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.400 here's some stats for you. In eighteen ninety, the top 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.280 one and this they should all sound very familiar if 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.400 you're alive and breathing oxygen today, But in eighteen ninety, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.640 the top one percent of the US owned fifty one 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.359 percent of all wealth. Yeah, dude, more than half of 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.480 all wealth in that nuts. It is nuts, but you're right, 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.679 it does sound very familiar. The top twelve percent owned 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.000 eighty six percent of all wealth, and the lower fort 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.760 of the US population, which was about half the population, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.520 owned one cent. Uh. And here's that's even more nuts. Well, 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:09.520 I mean all these just top one another. I think 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.160 here's the last one. Uh in even the richest four 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.719 thousand families. That sounds like a lot of people, but 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.000 that's less than one percent of the population. The richest 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.480 four thousand had as much wealth as the other eleven 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:28.000 point six million families combined. Yeah, how about that? So 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.240 that is what you call economic inequality, right, And I 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.520 think the thing is is especially over time. But I 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.200 get the impression during that age too, like the people 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:44.520 who resent that, liberals typically um tend to be painted 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:47.840 with this brush that says, you're just jealous. You've never 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.240 made that much money in your life, you probably never will, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:52.800 and it sickens you to see somebody else with that 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.040 money because you don't have it. And it's that second part, 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.480 that last part about because you don't have it, that 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.359 I think misses the mark work, and that even at 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.600 the time, during the guilded guilded age today when people 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:06.520 look at it in quality, that kind of stuff, what 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.480 there what a lot of them. I'm sure there are 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.840 people out there who are just jealous and haters for 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.960 that reason, but a lot of them say no, no, 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.760 like that, that that level, that that amount of disparity 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.880 shouldn't exist. Where if if there are people who are 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:26.680 just genuinely suffering, who are just poor and aren't able 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:31.400 to make it with whatever living they're making, um, if 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.600 they exist, they shouldn't have people who have that much 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.199 amount of money. And that was a sentiment in the 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.959 guilding guilded age is much too. It wasn't like they 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.800 didn't realize this was going on at the time. Um, 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:45.800 the sentiment was very much like it is today, except 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:48.720 in the Gilded Age they did things like form labor 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:53.879 unions and strike and um, and just basically did something 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.000 about it. They didn't take it laying down, which is 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.399 actually criticism that's levied or has been levied in the 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.480 past against people today. Yeah, and I think there's also 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:08.800 a notion that the more left leaning people are anti success, 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:15.479 and that's that's not true either. It's um, well, that's 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.439 all I'm gonna say about that. That's just not true. Okay, 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:22.639 it's just not true. They're they're not asids, they're not 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:28.040 anti success um. And and I don't think that every 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:32.840 conservative thinks like, yeah, man, that like it's all fair 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:34.800 and you should be able to do whatever you want 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.040 to get ahead and stomp on any one's head that 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.199 you want to get there. I think these are just 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.760 broad brush um things that keep the country divided. Yeah, absolutely, 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:47.359