The New Gilded Age: A Comparative Analysis

Starting with Ronald Reagans policies in the 1980s, America began to look more and more like the Gilded Age. The Bull Market of the 90s and the policies of both Bush administrations began to shift capital from the working and middle class to the capitalist class. In 2005 economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman pointed out that America was in the midst of a “New Gilded Age” because income, wealth and power were increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group of elites at levels not seen since the days of the robber barons. As long as the illusion of shared prosperity was maintained through things like over-valued stock and real estate America had to reason to protest the return of Gilded Age

Industrialization started during the Gilded Age, the Gilded Age was a time of massive amounts of wealth for the politicians, they mostly were corrupt and ineffective, and many of these people were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and many others. These people were called robber barons; they had lots of money by having too much control in the US. Rockefeller owned the Standard Oil Company; he had 90% control of the world. Andrew Carnegie in document 18-4 states, “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth…poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life.” Carnegie demonstrates that most of the people living in this age were having bad conditions of life.

The Gilded Age The Second Revolution, or the “Gilded Age”, was a period of time between 1865-1896. Coined by Mark Twain, the term “Gilded Age” meant that the era had an extreme worship of wealth and that most people were haughty, shallow, and showed off their affluence just to demonstrate their high social class. Just from that definition, it is evident as to how different social classes were affected. While the First Industrial Revolution changed every single aspect of Americans’ life, the second took those original inventions and innovations and evolved them, some of which were railroads and the expansion of the market.

Mexico has a drug problem that continues to grow. About three and a half years ago, Felipe Calderon was sworn in as president and immediately declared "war" on drugs. Since Felipe Calderon became president, about 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, and a mass majority of Mexicans, according to surveys, believe that their president is losing the war on drugs. Despite the huge number of federal forces that are sent into the cities where the cartels are operating.

The Gilded Age lasted from 1870-1900 The Gilded Age, which spanned the final three decades of the nineteenth century, was one of the most dynamic, contentious, and volatile periods in American history. America's industrial economy exploded, generating unprecedented opportunities for individuals to build great fortunes but also leaving many farmers and workers struggling merely for survival. Overall national wealth increased more than fivefold, a staggering increase, but one that was accompanied by what many saw as an equally staggering disparity between the rich and the poor. Industrial giants like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized business and ushered in the modern corporate economy, but also, ironically, sometimes destroyed

There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the

Reconstruction- created race conflict in all aspects of American society Both in the North and South The Gilded Age- separation of the classes began to emerge wealthy elite rose above the working class and artificially suppressing worker wages Social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer- the application of Darwin’s theory of evolution to socioeconomics by Spencer created a sense that lower classes were “unfit” Survival of the fittest World War I- following the disillusionment of WWI, a fear of outsiders rose Harding: “Return to Normalcy”

Apart from this humanitarian reason, the economic situations also triggered US’s intervention in conflicts between Cuba and Spanish. As indicated in lecture, the Americans worried about their sugar productions in Cuba. This was because the US-Cuba sugar trades worth $100 million per year and these trades were totally collapsed because of the Spanish-Cuban war. The

Crime by the Mexican border has become worse over the years. Mexican Side Of The Border: Drug trafficking. Human smuggling. Extortion. Murder..

The awareness of the public economic difference has yet brought focus back on to the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era in American history, a topic that hasn 't really been mentioned since the financial crisis, also known as the Global Financial Crisis that occurred in late 2007 leading into 2008. The periods we know as the Gilded Age and Progressive Era were focused more so on the wealth, which is why we compare that time to the time we live in today. Our problem when researching for historical analogies is that we tend to examine in past with our own personal assumptions, finding what all we want, which would consider us to be biased. We are honored to be able to observe the history of our country through the works of Michael McGerr 's A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920. Up until today 's time, historians of the era had given up on the different impulses behind the reform efforts of the progressive era.