During the Gilded Age, America was the place to go. For many today, it is the place to leave. The Gilded Age relied on average people willing to work long hours to make a few rich. Business owners secured labor as cheaply as possible; whether those wages could support a family or work/life balance didn't matter because the owners wanted more. Sound familiar?
The word "gilded" means thinly covered with gold, implying that the material underneath is substantially less valuable than gold.
Among the first self-made Americans to become acquainted with the addictive nature of the American dream were millionaires Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. Their wealth was comparable to billionaires today. Like the frequently copied but never duplicated performing artist Beyoncé, who recently won Album of the Year for her album, Cowboy Carter, or the hateful weirdo attempting to overthrow the U.S. government starting with the Treasury Department’s data, they were economies unto themselves.
The Commercialism of Wealth: Then and Now
The Gilded Age [1870 - 1890] was marked by extravagant displays of wealth, such as incredible mansions, lavish social events, and media outlets obsessed with the lives of the rich. Newspapers functioned as the era’s social media, amplifying the opulence of figures like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. Society in the late 1800s was similar to ours today. News and media outlets discussed the mega-rich, much like how we follow Beyoncé, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, or Kim Kardashian. Let's explore how the commercialism of wealth during the Gilded Age mirrors America in 2025.
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Celebrities at NYFW Fall/Winter 2025 [February 6 - 11, 2025] mirror the spectacles of wealth we glorified during the Gilded Age. The Met Gala, the Grammys, and fashion weeks are like 19th-century balls: luxe social events reinforcing the idea that wealth signifies power and status.
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Like Carnegie built libraries and J.P. Morgan supported the arts, today’s billionaires engage in tax-incentivized giving through foundations. Celebrity charities and art investments (while beneficial and potentially sincere) are examples of philanthropy as reputation management.
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Parasocial relationships fuel productivity in American culture. We glorify financial success and regularly associate the apparent level of effort someone applies with their wealth. In reality, structural barriers to success that cyclically grow/shrink (such as low wages, job insecurity, wealth concentration, etc.) ensure that only a few ascend the economic ladder.
Glamorous as always, Beyoncé showed us what being a Black woman from the South means to her in her December half-time show, nicknamed Beyoncé Bowl. As a Black woman from a red state with a heart that bleeds blue, Beyoncé helps me feel seen. Similarly, Kendrick's critical yet patriotic Super Bowl LIX performance is iconic and paints a picture of Black placemaking in the United States that resonates widely. 24 hours later, more than 29 million people have already seen the Super Bowl LIX halftime show.
Perhaps the best element of Kendrick's show was the inclusion of Black male dancers who dressed as casually, and felt as familar, as my neighbors growing up.
Some may have interpreted Kendrick's display of Black expression as too ghetto. In contrast, this year's theme for the Met Gala [May 5, 2025] is "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, [to celebrate] Black style and menswear, as well as the role of clothing in the formation of Black identities." The Met will be hosted by five Black men and living legends: Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, and LeBron James.
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The Paradox of Progress
The paradox of progress is that each leap forward comes at a cost. The promise of the American Dream, defined increasingly by financial and material success, drives individuals to relentless productivity. Meanwhile, the very forces of commercialism and technological advancement that fuel economic growth also exacerbate income disparities. As in the past, political and social influence remain inextricably linked to wealth, effectively muting the voices of the poor while the ultra-rich shape society’s direction.
This essay argues that structures of economic power in the United States, past and present, demonstrate that our pursuit of success perpetuates cycles of inequality rather than eliminating them.
Wages Reflect Social Progress
If we define labor as a human force acting upon nature, then labor is as natural and necessary to our survival as breathing. Even as our most rudimentary selves, we must labor for our food, environment, and children.
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Labor impressed upon matter creates a product and can be called “productive labor.”
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Capital is wealth devoted to a given purpose, such as the production of a product.
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Wealth includes capital, but not all wealth is capital because capital aids in production.
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Wages are fixed, regular payments made by an employer to an employee in exchange for labor. In other words, your paycheck.
Production (of a product or a performance) proceeds enjoyment.
Therefore, wages are not paid from capital because the cost of output is paid for before the product is used. In practical terms, that means Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé paid to produce their Super Bowl performances before we enjoyed them. Taking advantage of the opportunity required upfront costs, which they recouped following their performances. Therefore, capital is earned (recouped) from the product of labor. An employee's pay represents only a portion of the wealth generated for companies.
When we assert that workers’ wages come from society's overall productivity, we seek to emphasize that every innovation, infrastructure investment, and improvement in education or public services contribute to a larger “pie” of wealth. Big bosses and everyday workers are paid out of this continuously growing pool of social productivity. Since wages represent a share of society’s total productive output, rising wages indicate that society is advancing. Increased wages furthermore suggest that a community’s capabilities are improving: technology, infrastructure, education, and institutions.
When wages are disconnected from social productivity and instead tied to our returns on capital, economic growth concentrates among the wealthy. This concentration reflects their influence and distorts the benefits of social progress, leading to inequality even if the economy as a whole is growing.
The Role of Art in Image Control
Art speaks to the soul of man, and creation is God's gift to humanity. If you've ever wondered how rich artists like Beyonce and Kendrick manage to bring America together with apparently divisive content, it's because they directly and relatably speak to socioeconomic conditions impacting placemaking in the United States. People who talk about revolution and appear to take steps toward empowering others to pursue financial success embody the American dream. That's how larger-than-life entertainers who give voice to common perspectives are able to disarm large audiences, redirect grievances, and influence the public's most pressing concerns.
When the paintings we admire in museums around the world were still wet to the touch, the world was not perfect.
In the late 1800s, while America experienced its first Gilded Age and when Art Nouveau was a new form of stylistic expression... people like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan managed to amass inconceivable fortunes for their time. They steered the culture of our country through fancy parties, unrealistic work schedules, low pay, significant donations, and even larger loans.
Similar to entertainment today, Art Nouveau took "inspiration from the unruly aspects of the natural world... [to influence] art and architecture, especially in the applied arts, graphic work, and illustration."
Wealthy patrons throughout history have paid for the production of art as somewhat of a social tax to wage workers for their disproportionate wealth.
Philanthropy is how the super-rich maintain their riches and their social standing in our society. Today, we praise the efforts of Beyoncé's BeyGood Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott's Yield Giving to ease suffering and address pay gaps. The general public is more likely to receive the mega-rich positively when they share their immense wealth. So, when wealthy people like Jeff Bezos clearly prioritize profits over the well-being of wage workers, we don't see them as kindly.
When wealthy people like Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, align with a given group in pursuit of (what is perceived as) a shared goal, that wealthy person lives in a grey area. In Elon's case, some people feel he has paid his dues, while others argue he has tricked and robbed the American people.
Sam Altman, for example, stole the intellectual property of people and businesses alike when he trained ChatGPT on pretty much the entire internet. Still, many Americans possess a utilitarian perspective toward his decision; they believe that his role in providing generative AI tools and ensuring that the United States develops quantum computing before China justifies his deceit.
The Price of Technological and Economic Progress
Innovation and economic expansion do not inherently translate to improved living conditions for all. Instead, history shows that progress for some often leads to economic (read: financial) instability for others.
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The Gilded Age’s labor struggles mirror today’s job insecurity. Industrial workers labored under brutal conditions while the wealth of a few soared. Today, automation, artificial intelligence, and the gig economy threaten job stability, creating modern economic displacement.
Just as Gilded Age tycoons hoarded profits, modern corporations reward shareholders over workers.
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Profits are usually reinvested into financial markets, automation, or executive compensation (rather than being distributed to workers via higher wages). As individual wealth increases (capital, assets, and profits), average wages remain stagnant or fail to grow at the same rate.
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When financial crises emerge, the ultra-wealthy can, and often do, wield more influence than the government. For example, we can compare J.P. Morgan’s bailout of the U.S. government to billionaire interventions today. Whether it’s tech moguls shaping AI policy or private entities funding public services, concentrations of power center around wealth.
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Controlling the Freedom of Speech
What does it mean to be living through another Gilded Age where, under the surface, the United States is in economic decline? The American Dream is no longer just about democracy or personal liberty; it's about financial autonomy. Without wealth, your influence in society is severely limited. In fact, you can effectively control liberties like freedom of speech in the United States with enough money and control over commonly accessed resources. Think about community rules and Zuckerberg's control of Meta.
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Today, financial uncertainty and threats from opposing political parties discourage political participation, as many struggle to meet basic needs. To overcome immense inequality, the People's Party (neither Democratic, nor Republican) started a labor movement and enjoyed timely successes in the early 1890s thanks to high political participation.
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In the Gilded Age, labor movements fought for power against industrialists. Today, political lobbying and media control by billionaires shape public discourse while marginalized voices remain largely unheard. To change the concentration of power away from billionaires, millions of people must pool their resources and voices to make a uniform choice.
Freedom as Economic Power
Ron Swanson once said, "Capitalism determines who is smart, and who is poor," suggesting you ought to figure out how to work smarter (read: cut corners/delegate steps) rather than harder. The commercialism, celebrity levels of wealth, and parasocial relationships we worship as motivation for increased productivity in the United States are exactly what keep most poor.
The pursuit of freedom in the United States as we know it in 2025 is, therefore, the pursuit of increased financial and material success. The American Dream is an infinite game where there are no winners or losers; the country's goal is to survive. Paradoxically, by virtue of American ambition, the wealthy have more influence and louder voices than others, while our poorest citizens are basically mute.
The implicit assumption is that to have a voice in the United States, you must earn and maintain control over valuable resources.
Still, even if you're empathic to the plight of man and generally want to help others, "you must put your mask on before helping others". This means that to share (help others), you must acquire more resources than you need so you can control where those funds are redistributed. The more acutely aware you are of this reality, the more you want to hoard resources for whomever/whatever you care about most. In Beyoncé's own words, her "great-grandchildren [are] already rich" thanks to her and her husband's three billion dollar fortune. Your children's future may not be so secure.
Wealth, Progress, and Paradox
Despite economic evolution, the fundamental structure of American wealth remains unchanged. The same forces that made Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller rich are at play today, but with new figures at the helm. Since few people are willing to redistribute their hard-won wealth and property for the greater good... (I know I wouldn't), inequality persists; its severity ebbs and flows.
While individual success is possible, systemic progress remains elusive. Understanding this pattern should not be a source of despair but a call to rethink our pursuit of success. If we want to achieve the greatest good, we need a system that does not rely on the myth of boundless opportunity. Instead, we ought to seek the fair distribution of economic resources.
This is why some African Americans believe an abolitionist approach to the United States Constitution, that is to say, Americans writing a new rulebook based on our experience thus far, is the only way to move forward without the unrelenting consequences of our origins. However reasonable or extreme this sounds to you, our great American experiment has survived long enough to reveal a dangerous and deadly cycle of haves and have-nots, a series of competing identities separated into acceptable and "not like us." In closing, consider a final question:
As an American citizen with limited control over our most valuable resources, will you play the game or choose revolution?
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