In the Left’s usually skewed view of America’s past, they reserve a special place in historical Hell for the late 19th century, early 20th century entrepreneurial giants who helped revolutionize our economy and nation.
These were the likes of Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, Andrew Mellon and John D. Rockefeller. The Industrialists the anti-free-market Left dubbed “Robber Barons” - simply because these men were so very good at free-marketing.
The Left wholly ignored their incredible contributions to moving all of us massively forward. And loathed them for their massive hugeness -and for the abusive practices in which some engaged.
The Left failed (and fails) to understand the evolution of every free market system ever. As a free market grows, the ability of the few to dominate the many very quickly dissipates. More and more people acquire larger sums of coin - and they too get into business for themselves.
Competition being, as it always is, a fabulous equalizing and bettering force - consumers and employees have ever more options from which to choose. So businesses have to stop abusing their customers and the help.
And that’s what happened in Robber Baron Era I. As the free market expanded - things continually got better. For everyone.
Of course, we today have equally massive companies - and their Robber Baron leaders. And most of them are Silicon Valley Tech Titans.
Without doing the math, I would imagine Jeff Bezos’s personal worth ($83 billion) and the value of his massive company Amazon ($490 billion) - are at least as relatively huge as a Carnegie or a Mellon and their respective companies ever were.
Ditto Google (now Alphabet) ($652 billion) and their founders Larry Page ($49 billion) and Sergey Brin ($43 billion). And Facebook ($501 billion) and Mark Zuckerberg ($64 billion).
And controlling the Internet today - is almost inarguably more important and influence-imposing than was then being an oil or finance baron.
From all we’ve thus far seen, an Internet monopoly-esque stranglehold is far more difficult to break up or break away from - than was any old school Robber Baron domination.
In no small part because today’s Robber Barons have an additional HUGE advantage - today’s government. Government at all levels has scaled WAY up.
Back then, the size, scope and sphere of influence of our nation’s governments was exceedingly small. They weren’t capable of being used against us as anything more than pea shooters. Sure, businesses bribed the government into cronyism - but their tininess made it an almost wholly ineffectual practice.
Today’s behemoth bloated bureaucracies - are nuclear bombs. Eminently worth today’s Robber Barons bribing them into action.
We now have a HUGE federal government - and thousands of state and local government hugenesses - all bulling their way through our china shop economy. And all steerable in your direction - with just the right amount of crony cash.
Just how big has government gotten? How huge a set of weapons have governments become for today’s Robber Barons?
Our entire economy’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is $18 trillion. The federal government - all by itself - spends $4 trillion per year. Which is about $12,000 per every single man, woman and child we’ve got. That’s a bit much, no? The Feds also regulate - at a compliance cost to us of an additional $2 trillion per year.
Get that math? The federal government - all by its onesies - robs the entire nation of one-third of the total production of every man, woman and child we’ve got. That’s a bit much, no?
And we haven’t even added in the 50 state governments, the city governments, the county governments, the municipality governments,…. All of which have scaled up in size, scope and sphere of influence under the cover of the Feds’ ever-expanding umbrella.
All of that’s a bit much, no?
All of this government - also allows today’s Robber Barons to execute the Big Con. Rather than abusing us directly, they use governments as their primary weapons. They can put on a “Don’t Be Evil” smiley-face - while having the bureaucracies do their dirty work for them.
Today’s Robber Barons bribe feckless government officials - who are wielding power far beyond the Constitution’s constraints and their meager abilities and who then abuse their power, the system and all of us by engaging in massive amounts of Robber-Baron-favoring government cronyism.
And never were the Feds more willing to crony deal with today’s Robber Barons - than in the awful epoch that was the Obama Administration.
The Tech Titans nigh single-handedly got Obama elected. The Administration was then staffed to the rafters with Valley exes - and vice versa. And, of course, the Administration was a Pez dispenser of Tech Titan preferential policies.
The biggest of the very many cronyisms was the ridiculous nonsense that is Network Neutrality, which is, amongst very many other awfulnesses, a government mandate that states Robber Baron companies like Google and Netflix (these two all by themselves use half of all U.S. bandwidth) - can not be charged for bandwidth. That’s not government favoritism at all.
And guess who necessarily gets charged Net-Neutrality-government-
We Little Guys - for whom the Left is allegedly looking out. Our yesteryear guardians against the Robber Barons have suddenly switched sides. Why is that? How did that happen? Because of at least two things.
One: The Left then - wants what the Left does now. Bigger government. And government has gotten so huge it has the Left criss-crossing lines they themselves had previously drawn.
Two: The Robber Barons - in addition to massively bribing governments - massively bribe the Left.
Which doesn’t just purchase the Left’s silence - it buys the Left actively championing the Robber Barons and their anti-We-the-People government-cronyism.
The Left has gone from fighting Robber Barons - to fighting right alongside them.
Demonstrating yet again just how thoroughly big government warps EVERYTHING.