WEBVTT - Selects: Robber Barons! 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.360 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh. For this week's Select I've 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.840 chosen our July twenty twenty episode on robber Barons. It 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.280 turns out that today's billionaires and leaders of industry bears 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.320 some resemblance to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.880 but there are some big differences. Namely, today's billionaires are 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.880 kind of terrible at philanthropy, and the robber barons of 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.560 the last century were far less preoccupied with outer space. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.480 Hope you enjoyed this episode. It's a pretty good one. 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:40.040 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.880 Charles W. Chuckers Bryant over there. Jerry was just here 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.960 doing the COVID setup and then got out of the 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:53.760 room really quick. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.160 Hell their breath for five straight minutes. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.840 It's a new record. It really is a new studio. 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.680 Sure, and this is stuff you should know. That's no 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.640 David Blaine record, by the way. 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:07.600 No, I mean that's her studio record. You should see 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:08.840 her when she's pearl diving, though. 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.840 Wouldn't that be something if Jerry did have a secret 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:19.039 life pearl diving that would be amazing. It would, but 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.600 we're not talking about Jerry Chuck enough about her. Instead, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.840 I propose that we have a nice, pleasant conversation about 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.360 robber barons. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.600 Yeah, this is an interesting topic because depending on who 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:39.000 you ask, the robber barons were either the greatest thing 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.160 to ever happen to this country, right or one of 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.080 the worst things to ever happen to this country. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:45.040 Yeah. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.520 Yeah, And at first, from what I could tell, historians, 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.080 like immediately after in the like a few decades after 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.280 the Gilded Age, which we'll talk about, where the you know, 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.040 the age the robber barons worked and operated and lived in, 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.000 really took it to be like their their presence, their 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.640 existence was one of the worst things ever. But over time, 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.920 there's kind of been a reformation of them, you know, 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.720 kind of like a revisiting of them that has tried 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:16.399 to revive their image or actually make their image possibly 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:17.799 better than it ever has been. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:19.520 Yeah, I mean it kind of. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.919 I think a lot of this has to probably depends 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.040 on what you feel about, you know, capitalism to this 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.720 extent where kind of doesn't matter how you make your 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.200 money if it's sort of underhanded and you sort of 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:39.160 undercut competitors and monopolize things. That's all just free trade man, 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.720 free capitalism, and that's how it works out. And then 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.840 those guys a ton of gave a ton of money 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:49.480 to society before they died, and so they that's that's 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.280 all the injustifies the means. 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.160 Yeah, I actually, yeah, that's the conservative way to look 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:02.080 at it. And I ran across something I can't remember 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.320 what's called, but it's basically, oh, human imperfection. Did you 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.440 know that the idea that humans are imperfect and there's 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:14.120 really no reason to try to make a perfect society 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.440 because it will always be imperfect and in ruin that 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.400 that is a cornerstone, a hallmark of conservatism. 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:23.079 Did you know that? 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.200 I didn't, But I mean, of course you can't make 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:29.200 a perfect society. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:30.280 It makes sense. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:35.160 Well, so conservatives are saying that in opposition to all 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.160 of the liberal efforts to make a perfect society, to 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.560 have government regulation that says no, no, we should all 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.240 have clean water, and we should do it at the 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.240 expense of making corporations clean up the waste water before 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:53.000 they release their waste into the shared common water resources. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.480 Things like that, right, And that there's this idea that 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:02.040 you can mold society into some perfect form, that that's 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.160 the opposite of human imperfection, that that's like what liberals think, 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.160 and that that is that right there is one of 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.440 the main dividing lines between conservative and liberal. I've been 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.040 on the planet for almost forty four years now, and 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.000 I had no idea that it was just that simple, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:20.480 and it really kind of is. 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.000 I think the word perfect is what's a stumbling block 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.599 for me, because I don't know a single liberal thinks 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:26.880 that they can make things perfect. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.720 Yeah, the goal is to make things better. Yeah, yeah, agreed. 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.200 I don't know that it's it's a great word either, 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.280 but i'd think that that's you know, I mean, hey, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.760 you're gonna argue with the Stanford Encyclopedia philosophy, I'm not. 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.160 I'll bring it on, man, I'll punch that thing right 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:41.679 in the face. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:46.200 Speaking of Stanford, did you know that Stanford University was 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.040 named out verbarranded. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.120 Yeah, a robber baron named Leland Stanford. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.200 Actually, yeah, a lot of universities are named after Robert barons. 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:54.880 Yeah. 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.839 There's a lot of problems with some of the early 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.800 histories of universities, as we'll find out in the coming weeks. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.640 So we should get into the Gilded Age. 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.839 We should hop in the old wayback machine, because that's 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.880 the age that we're talking about. And when you hear 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.480 gilded age, it might sound really great, because I mean, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.160 what's better than a gilded I don't know, toilet. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:20.680 Gilded Lily? 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.880 Isn't that another one that another thing people guild? 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:24.320 I don't know. 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.680 That's a pretty good band name though, Gilded Lily, Yeah, 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.160 like a nineties power pop. 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.960 Oh, totally, you nailed it. And I said, what about breakfast? 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:35.279 Said Tiffany's. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.160 But the Gilded Age is. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.320 And Dave Ruz helped us put this together, and he 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.000 points out it's not a term of endearment. 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:43.440 When something is gilded. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.960 That means it's it's got a thin coating of gold, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.400 but underneath it's you know, it could be a gilded turd. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.280 Sure, I hate that word so much. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.159 I love it. It's so great, do you? Oh? Yeah, 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.120 I mean I hate I love it and how awful 0:05:59.160 --> 0:05:59.440 it is? 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:01.360 Oh gotcha? 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.479 But I think it's so awful it like comes out 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.320 on the other side as just plain old awful to me. Okay, 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.560 So yeah, that's the idea of the Gilded Age that 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.560 it looked great on the outside, but on the inside 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.159 it wasn't so great. And what it was this So 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.680 this was the second half of the nineteenth century, basically 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.680 from pretty much the end of the Civil War up 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.120 until the first decade of the twentieth century, yea. And 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:33.640 it was characterized by a huge, massive shift in the 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.200 American economy where I saw somewhere that at some point 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.400 in the eighteen sixties to some point in the early 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.400 eighteen eighties, in about fifteen years, the American economy doubled 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:50.280 doubled inside in fifteen years. That's how massive it was, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:51.920 and that's how fast it happened. 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:52.800 And what it was was. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.719 A transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.400 And it happened virtually over night as far as history goes. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.080 Yeah, and it was because it happened so quickly, and 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.520 because it was such growth, I think the government was like, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.680 we're going to stay out of this and kind of. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.160 Just let your dudes do what you're going to do, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:16.560 no regulation. 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:19.760 You can be as competitive as you want to be, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.720 and you can satisfy a scratch every capitalist itch you want, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.240 and we're just going to let that happen because we're 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.080 also kind of getting rich on the side. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.320 Right, So that kind of raises something that I saw 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.440 is that the idea that it's kind of like a 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.560 myth of the lase fair government during this era. They 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.800 were definitely lase fair when it comes to regulation and 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.800 letting corporatists run rough shot over labor. But they were 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.160 anything butt hands off when it came to corporate welfare 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:55.120 and political entrepreneurship and helping out the wealthy class at 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.720 the expense of the people in general. So in one hand, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.640 on one hand, they were lase fair, on the other 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:01.440 they were not. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.520 Yeah, and what we're talking about here is stuff like 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.360 snatching up resources where you could hoarding them for yourself, 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.119 like building such a massive business that you could drive 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:18.920 out every other smaller business, drive them right out of 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.040 business by undercutting their prices. Jobs were more scarce, so 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.600 you could have people work harder for less and less wages. 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.040 That kind of thing, right exactly. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:35.840 And what's crazy, Like it was a dog eat dog economy. 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:38.800 Yeah, it was just nuts how it happened. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.080 And there was a lot of like learning on the fly, 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.160 and the learning curve was extremely steep because I mean 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.120 This was just basically a country of farmers who had been, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.640 you know, looked down upon by Europe for a century 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.920 or more, and they all of a sudden were captains 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.199 of industry, and the most ruthless among them were the 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.080 ones that rose to the top, because, like you're saying, 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.079 there was no rules, there was no regulation, there weren't 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.760 any standards of business. They were all figuring it out 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.560 as they were going along, and they went immediately to 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.280 the worst impulses that capitalism can raise in a person 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.600 when you're in pursuit of as much possible wealth as 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.920 you can get, and there's plenty of it to be had. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.400 And then, like you're saying, not only did the federal 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.200 government not get involved, they weren't equipped to get involved 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.280 because at that point, most of the government was focused 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.560 on local stuff. And now, all of a sudden, as 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.400 the United States is truly becoming a continent wide nation, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.360 the federal government is kind of lagging behind to catch up, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.800 and wouldn't really begin to catch up in the progressive era. 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.800 And some would say that the pendulum swung the exact 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.640 opposite way to the exact opposite extreme direction that it 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.120 had during the Gilded age. 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.480 Yeah, I mean, let's talk about the Gilded Age and 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.559 the I guess just you owe it all to train really, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.520 and trains you owed to steel, so you got to 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:07.440 go back a little bit. Steel was a very big 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:12.360 deal in that when they found out mister Henry Bessemer 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.680 in the eighteen fifties found out how to make steel 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.120 like a lot cheaper. He got a new process going 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.680 where it was just like a making vast amounts of 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.880 steel for a fraction at the cost and speed, and 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.840 all of a sudden, you could open up those local 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.840 rail lines to stretch across the country and all these 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:37.320 regional specialty businesses and industries, whether it was you know, 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.640 Cincinnati was known for furniture, and obviously in places like 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.319 Wyoming you had coal, and you had copper, and Montana 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.000 and you had a lot of timber and Oregon. You 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.920 could get that stuff anywhere you wanted to go, and 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:50.920 that changed everything. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.000 Yeah, not only could you get it to where you 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.640 wanted to go, you could do it exponentially cheaper than 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.520 it used to be over land or say using canals, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.720 and then also way faster too. So now if you 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:07.160 were making like really great armchairs in Cincinnati, like you 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.240 were saying, like, not only did you have the town 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.560 that they're just known for it, that's their mascot, I 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:14.760 believe of the baseball team. 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:16.440 Yeah, citters right. 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.160 Not only did you have the town of Cincinnati and 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.720 maybe some other regional parts of Ohio as your market, 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.440 you know how the entire country to supply with chairs. 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.120 And that happened at a really great time, the steel 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.880 coming along and building the railroads, because the United States 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.160 economic engine was kind of idling a really high rpm 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.840 for a little while before this. Apparently the War of 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.920 eighteen twelve caused the United States to kind of stop 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.520 relying on Europe and turn inward and become much more 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.200 self reliant than it had been before. So it started 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.480 to exploit more industry and resources rather than rely on 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:55.760 imports from Europe. 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:56.640 That was a big one. 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.800 And then the Civil War had it brought a lot 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.160 of factories online in the North that hadn't been there before. 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:05.839 And so when the Civil War ended, these factories were 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.440 all ready to go, and with the abundance of plentiful steel, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.280 that engine got put into gear and it just kind 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:14.560 of took off like a rocket. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:15.240 Yeah. 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.200 When I was reading this and I tried to find out, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.840 but I couldn't really get a firm hold. I wondered 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.120 if back then, when this started to happen, you know 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:27.160 how people rail against the global trade and the globalization. 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:32.559 I wonder if people railed against nationalization of commerce back then, 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.520 or if they all just thought it was all great. 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:35.600 No. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.840 No, But one of the things I read about that's 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.760 actually a mark in favor of the Gilded Age being 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:46.440 actually a good thing for America is that people everyday 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:51.480 people were super involved in politics, in the political process 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.079 and agitating for what they wanted. And so if there 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.720 were people who were definitely in favor of this kind 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.720 of just taking off like a rocket, knitting the country together, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.239 that kind of stuff, nationalization, then there was definitely opposition 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.040 parties to that too. I figure who saw the problems 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.200 with it. But the cool thing is is that everybody 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.560 was involved in Everybody was like like like they cared 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.800 about the direction the country was going, rather than just 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.760 sitting back and being like, well, nothing we can do 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:18.280 about it. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.480 I wonder though, if it was like if there were business, 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.800 like if they were furniture makers in Cincinnati going, I 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.319 don't want to sell my chairs out there, that. 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.400 Is not what they said, like in Cincinnati. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:33.040 Is that not a Cincinnati accident? 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:33.880 No? 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.320 Okay, I might be thinking of Maine. Yeah right, But 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.240 I wonder if I wonder who was opposing it. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.440 I don't know, I don't know. I haven't seen that one. 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.440 Some of the things that I saw where one of 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.480 the big fights was over currency and whether it should 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.200 remain on the gold standard or whether it should be 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.960 easy money, which, of course the so the farmers wanted. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.599 I think they wanted easy money. I can't remember who wanted. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.760 To stay on the gold standard and others wanted, you know, basically, 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.800 to leave the gold standard and make money a lot 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.480 more easy to come by. 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.360 The runny Dangerfield movie. 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.880 That was an easy easy money. Man, That is a 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.000 tawdry movie, wasn't it. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:18.240 Yeah? It was good though. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.560 Yeah. 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:25.200 Hey, even the worst Dangerfield movies are still pretty great. Agreed, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.880 And on that point, real quick, I'm sorry. I know 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.120 we don't like to go off on tangents very often, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.960 but I have been watching Happy Days and surely. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.000 Lately, man, that is some comfort food, isn't it, Dude? 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:40.560 They are? 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.640 But not only that, it's not like junk food though, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:47.880 they're like, well, written, well acted, sure, well directed TV shows. 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.760 Like really, it's not at all like throwaway or disposable. 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.120 It doesn't rely on slick special effects or anything like that. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:55.680 It's just good stuff. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:55.960 Man. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:57.240 Yeah, I agree. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.720 And you know what, since we're on this tangent, we 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.160 should tell everyone that we're writing a book and it's coming. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:03.840 Out this fall. Yeah. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.680 It's called Stuff you Should Know, an incomplete compendium of 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.200 mostly interesting things. And you can pre order it now 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.400 if you want a special Tustin poster. 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.400 Yeah, you pre order it and you can go and 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.680 upload your receipt at stuff you should Read books dot 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.880 com and then there's like a little thing that says 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.840 like get your pre order gift and you upload a 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:23.880 picture of your receipt and they mail it to you 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.240 and you will be very happy with it because it's 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:26.880 pretty awesome. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.280 Yeah, and we want to sell We do want to 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.440 sell these books out there. We want to sell these 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:32.520 books all over the world. 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.920 Yes, we're glad that the railroad exists so we can 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:37.240 move these books around easily. 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:43.920 Oh man, you ain't kidding ship these things to Cincinnata, right, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.840 So where were we? So we were shipping things. Regional 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:52.600 businesses were becoming national businesses. People were leaving the farms, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:54.440 they were leaving small towns, they were going to the 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.120 big city. Immigrants were pouring in from Europe, African Americans 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.520 were going north because reconstruction didn't work out so well. 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:04.560 Yeah, because it was that abandoned. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.640 Yeah. Yeah, Have we done one on reconstruction? 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.520 No, No, we really need to though, totally. I mean 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.360 the more I've been I've been reading a lot about 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:14.680 that that period in history, and yes, we need to 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:15.640 definitely do one on that. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.160 But the point is there are a lot of people 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:22.760 flocking to work. This what was called the Second Industrial Revolution, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.920 where we saw over a period of about forty years, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.640 factory output went from one point nine billion to thirteen 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.440 billion dollars. 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:36.560 Right, I mean like this happened like almost overnight. It's 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.840 astounding how fast this happened. I don't think it even 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.720 happened this fast in the First Industrial Revolution, you know, 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.440 the one that started over in Manchester. Like I think 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.600 that it's this is nothing like this has ever happened 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:50.880 in the. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.640 History of the world. As far as I know, I 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:53.160 believe it. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:58.760 So oh sure, I was just getting reped up. My 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.800 own economic engines idling high. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.080 Right now, Well, take your foot off the gas, okay, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:05.639 and let's take a little break and we'll talk a 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.520 little bit about Mark Twain and what these a few 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.239 economic stats of the day right after this. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.239 All right, we're back, Charles. I'm feeling much better now 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.200 that my foot's off the gas. That was just good advice. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:42.760 Well, I mentioned Mark Twain. 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.480 And the only reason we're going to talk about Mark 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.200 Twain for a moment is because in eighteen seventy three 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.760 he co wrote a novel, a satire called The Gilded 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.640 Age Colon a Tale of Today, where it followed a 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:01.400 poor country farmer who is sort of I mean, does 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.240 he move to the city trying to get in on 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:04.600 the Second Industrial Revolution? 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:05.840 Yeah, totally. 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.280 It's exactly that kind of migration that you were talking 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:09.720 about just a few minutes ago. 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:12.280 And it didn't work out so well. Right. 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:13.760 I don't know. 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.280 I've never read the book, but from what I can tell, no, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.760 it didn't work out very well because he has taken 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.840 advantage of by all manner of bad people like crooked 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:30.000 politicians and crooked businessmen, and is basically run through the 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.960 ringer from what I can tell. But I've also seen 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.720 that that wasn't It wasn't exactly the best piece of 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.680 writing Mark Twain's ever come up with. But the thing 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.679 is that he releases in eighteen seventy three. Yeah, and 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.080 this is like at the very beginning of the Guilded Age, 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.359 So he saw it pretty quickly what was going on. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.920 And what he saw was this emergence from a relatively 0:18:55.080 --> 0:19:02.760 egalitarian society of a group of old, mind bogglingly wealthy 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.240 people that just rose up from the United States and 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:13.760 through you know, cheating and business acumen and taking advantage 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.960 of people and overworking people and underpaying people, but also 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.200 like having a lot of vision and foresight, all these 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.679 things coming together grab control of almost all of the 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.159 wealth that was being produced by the average American, and 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.120 all of the average Americans put together, who had moved 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.560 to these cities for the promise of better wages, better 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.200 living than the farm could offer. Some people were exploiting 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.399 that more than other people, and those people came to 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.560 be known as the robber barons, and they were the 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.680 lynchpin of why people think of the Gilded Age as 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:47.920 a rotten part of American history. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.280 Yeah, here's some stats for you. In eighteen ninety the 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.280 top one. And this they should all sound very familiar 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.800 if you're alive in breathing oxygen today. Right, But in 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.920 eighteen ninety the top one percent of the US owned 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:02.920 fifty one percent. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:07.159 Of all wealth. Yeah, dude, more than half of all wealth. 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.600 Yeah, in that nuts, it is nuts, But you're right, 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:11.800 it does sound very familiar. 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.399 The top twelve percent owned eighty six percent of all wealth, 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.040 and the lower forty four percent of the US population, 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.879 which was about half the population, owned one point two percent. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.119 And here's that's even more nuts. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.399 Well, I mean all these just top one another. I 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:30.760 think here's the last one. 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.679 In eighteen ninety seven, the richest four thousand families. That 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:36.919 sounds like a lot of people, but that's less than 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.600 one percent of the population. The richest four thousand had 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.639 as much wealth as the other eleven point six million 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:44.600 families combined. 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:46.919 Yeah, how about that? 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.640 So that is what you would call economic inequality, right, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.359 And I think the thing is is especially over time. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.800 But I get the impression during that age too, like 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:04.040 the people who resem that liberals typically tend to be 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.760 painted with this brush that says you're just jealous. You've 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.880 never made that much money in your life, you probably 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.880 never will and it sickens you to see somebody else with. 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:14.640 That money because you don't have it. 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.080