Posts Tagged ‘Gilded Age’
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”*…
Your correspondent is headed onto the road again; so, with apologies, regular service will be suspended until on or about May 17…
… In the meantime, the remarkable Henry Farrell offers sage advice…
Last Thursday, Combinations (a publication of the RadicalxChange foundation), published a review essay that I wrote on Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance. I’m not going to repeat here what I say there; it’s available for free, so if you want to read it, just click on the link! [and one should read it]. Instead, I want to make the implicit argument explicit.
One of the big problems of American politics – and of politics in plenty of places elsewhere – is that we lack usable and attractive futures. The result is the current battle between the defenders of the present, and an incoherent counter-alliance that brings the cultists of an imaginary past and the evangelists of an impossible future into common cause.
Because I am weird, I think that the most immediately useful aspect of Klein and Thompson’s book is not its specific argument about how to get to the future. It is that the book has the promise to reorient the presentists around the prospect of an attractive future, and the different paths you might take to get there. On the one hand, as Dan Davies says (riffing on post-punk philosophizing), if you don’t have a dream then how’re ya gonna have a dream come true? On the other, no single dream is capable of foretelling the One True Path To Abundance (or, for that matter, any other desirable goal) so you want to have useful arguments between people with different dreams, and different plausible paths…
[Farrell discusses the book and its reception– the myriad reactions it has occasioned– puts the debate into an intellectualy historical context, then pivots to his advice…]
… One terrifying prospect for the U.S. is that the Trump faction wins again in 2028. Another is that the Democrats regain power – but that like Keir Starmer’s government, they trap themselves in a vicious cycle where universal expectations of less generate factionalism and political stasis, which further deepen those universal expectations.
That is why I think that abundance is important as a goal. We need to aim towards some version of abundance to escape the trap we’re in. That too, is why I think that disagreement about how to reach that goal over the next couple of years is valuable in two ways.
First, no faction on the left or right has any monopoly on the wisdom about how to get there. It is only through argument – and experimentation in those bits of the federal system and local politics where experimentation is possible – that we can figure out what to do when we can do it. Second, if we can get to a place where the major argument is about how to get towards abundance, not just between center left and centrists, but across the political spectrum, we – for a very broad value of we – will be halfway towards winning the fight we need to win. Far more is politically possible when we are disagreeing over how to get to an attractive future, than when we are struggling to ensure that we are as close to the top of the pile as possible in a horrible one.
We need usable futures that can orient current politics in fruitful ways. Abundance – in the broadest sense of that term – is the closest thing to a common denominator across such futures that I know of…
Abundance not as an agenda but a goal: “We need usable futures,” from @himself.bsky.social.
For contrast, pair with: “Trump’s futurism: Elon’s rockets and fewer dolls for ‘baby girl’” (and Part 2) from @adamtooze.bsky.social.
* Franklin D. Roosevelt
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As we opt for optimism, we might send cautious birthday greetings to an example of what less-inclusive abundance can yield: John Warne “Bet-a-Million” Gates; he was born on this date in 1855. A Gilded Age industrialist and gambler, Gates was among the first salesmen of barbed wire. He parlayed his success into the manufacture of of the fencing; and success at that, into the manufacture fo steel. (He was instrumental in changing the steel industry’s production methods from the Bessemer process to the open hearth process.) He was the president of Republic Steel and later, of the Texas Company (an oil concern later known as Texaco) and of the Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Gulf Railroad.
Gates developed a taste– and a talent– for gambling at a young age. In his prime, he was known to host raucous, days-long poker games in his permanent suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. His nickname derived from a 1900 horserace in England on which he wagered $70,000 and was widely-reported to have won $1,000,000 (though it seems likely he won “only” $600,000).
“Government is an art, not a science, and an adventure, not a planned itinerary”*…
And sometimes, suggests Brian Potter, that adventure is more adventurous than others…
I spend a lot of time reading about manufacturing and its evolution, which means I end up repeatedly reading about the times and places where radical changes in manufacturing were taking place: Britain in the late 18th century, the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan in the second half of the 20th century, and (to a lesser extent) China today. I’ve been struck by how many parallels there are between modern China (roughly the period from the late 1970s till today) and the Gilded Age/Progressive era U.S. (roughly the period from the late 1860s to the 1920s).
During these periods, unprecedented levels of economic growth combined with large populations were making both the U.S. and China wealthy and powerful. Both countries were urbanizing, building enormous amounts of infrastructure, and becoming by far the largest manufacturers in the world, with industrial operations of unprecedented size. Both were undergoing wrenching social and cultural change as old institutions were replaced by new ones, and the countries began to become “modern.” Both were nations of ambitious strivers, where it seemed like anyone with talent could make themselves into a success by catching the tide of rising opportunity. Despite the many differences between the two countries, the forces of development pulled them along very similar paths…
[Potter reviews the histories of development in the U.S. and in China…]
… Yuen Yuen Ang [here] likewise notes the similarities between modern China and the Gilded Age U.S., stating that “both countries underwent a wrenching structural conversion from rural to urban and closed to global markets, producing once-in-a-generation opportunities for the politically connected and enterprising…to acquire fabulous wealth.”
The most interesting thing about these parallels, to me, is that the U.S. and China in many ways were starting from very different places. Prior to its opening up, China’s economy was entirely state-owned and state-planned, and its economic expansion was coupled with unwinding much of the state enterprise machinery, letting small businesses form and markets bloom.
The U.S., on the other hand, was on the other end of the spectrum. Prior to its economic expansion it had an incredibly weak state, and economy driven by very small enterprises. Its development was accompanied by the creation of large, powerful companies and institutions, and moving away from the “invisible hand” of the market and towards the “visible hand” of exchanges of goods and services mediated within very large organizations.
China’s success came from finding ways to mobilize its huge number of people and hasn’t necessarily been focused on operating at the frontier of efficiency. The U.S., on the other hand, despite its comparatively large population, had a chronic shortage of labor, and much of its development was focused on developing less labor-intensive manufacturing technologies like the American System. China built its success on the back of inexpensive labor, and it remains a middle-income country. In the U.S., labor has never been cheap; the U.S. had nearly the GDP per capita of Britain as early as the 1820s, and it had the highest GDP per capita in the world by the 1880s. But despite these differences, the logic of development pulled the U.S. and China along very similar paths. Both countries could exploit very large markets (both at home and abroad) and operated their industries at very large scales in order to do so. In both countries, this required a novel set of institutions that was radically different from what came before, and the transformation that created those institutions spawned cultures with many similarities…
“How China Is Like the 19th Century U.S.,” from @_brianpotter (via @ByrneHobart).
One notes that any solution brings its own crop of new problems… another way in which China’s recent history recalls the Gilded Age– and its aftermath.
See also: “The 2024 Nobel Laureates Are Not Only Wrong About China, But Also About the West” from Yuen Yuen Ang, cited above.
Apposite: “The Surprising Resilience of Globalization: An Examination of Claims of Economic Fragmentation” by Brad Setser.
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As we ponder parallels (lest we wonder if progress accrues during these developmental periods), we might recall that it was on this date in 1904 that Harvey Hubbell received a patent for an invention that changed life in the U.S. and beyond.
In 1888, at the age of 31, Hubbell had quit his job as a manager of a manufacturing company and founded Hubbell Incorporated in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a company which is still in business today, still headquartered near Bridgeport. Hubbell began manufacturing consumer products and, by necessity, inventing manufacturing equipment for his factory. Some of the equipment he designed included automatic tapping machines and progressive dies for blanking and stamping. One of his most important industrial inventions, still in use today, is the thread rolling machine. He quickly began selling his newly devised manufacturing equipment alongside his commercial products.
Hubbell received at least 45 patents, most of which were for electric products. For example, he patented the pull-chain electrical light socket in 1896. But his most famous– and impactful patent was the one he received on this date: the U.S. electrical power plug, which allowed the adoption in the U.S. of convenient, portable electrical devices (which Great Britain had enjoyed since the early 1880s). In 1916, Hubbell was also granted a patent for a three-bladed power plug, including a ground prong.
“The future belonged to the showy and the promiscuous”*…
Emily J. Orlando on the enduring relevance and the foresight of Edith Wharton…
If ever there were a good time to read the American writer Edith Wharton, who published over forty books across four decades, it’s now. Those who think they don’t know Wharton might be surprised to learn they do. A reverence for Wharton’s fiction informs HBO’s Sex and the City, whose pilot features Carrie Bradshaw’s “welcome to the age of un-innocence.” The CW’s Gossip Girl opens, like Wharton’s The House of Mirth, with a bachelor spying an out-of-reach love interest at Grand Central Station while Season 2 reminds us that “Before Gossip Girl, there was Edith Wharton.”
But why Wharton? Why now? Perhaps it’s because for all its new technologies, conveniences, and modes of travel and communication, our own “Gilded Age” is a lot like hers [see here]. For the post-war and post-flu-epidemic climate that engendered her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel The Age of Innocence is not far removed from our post-COVID-19 reality. In both historical moments, citizens of the world have witnessed a retreat into conservatism and a rise of white supremacy.
Fringe groups like the “Proud Boys” and “QAnon” and deniers of everything from the coronavirus to climate change are invited to the table in the name of free speech and here Wharton’s distrust of false narratives resonates particularly well. Post-9/11 calls for patriotism and the alignment of the American flag with one political party harken back to Wharton’s poignant questioning, in a 1919 letter, of the compulsion to profess national allegiance:
how much longer are we going to think it necessary to be “American” before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?
Her cosmopolitan critique of nationalist fervor remains instructive to us today…
Eminently worth reading in full (then picking up one of Wharton’s wonderful novels): “How Edith Wharton Foresaw the 21st Century,” in @lithub.
See also: “These days, the bigger the company, the less you can figure out what it does.”
* Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country
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As we prize perspicacity, we might recall that it was on this date in 1884, in the midst of the Gilded Age, that Harper’s Bazaar proclaimed, “…it is not convenable, according to European ideas, to wear a loose flowing robe of the tea-gown pattern out of one’s bedroom or boudoir. It has been done by ignorant people at a watering-place, but it never looks well. It is really an undress, although lace and satin may be used in its composition. A plain, high, and tight-fitting garment is much the more elegant dress for the afternoon teas as we give them.”
Embraced by artists and reformers, the Aesthetic Dress Movement of the 1870s and 1880s was a non-mainstream movement within fashion that looked to the Renaissance and Rococo periods for inspiration. The movement began in response to reformers seeking to call attention to the unhealthy side effects of wearing a corset, thus, the main feature of this movement in women’s dress was the loose-fitting dress, which was worn without a corset. Artists and progressive social reformers embraced the Aesthetic Dress movement by appearing uncorseted and in loose-fitting dresses in public. For many that fell into these categories, Aesthetic Dress was an artistic statement. Appearing in public uncorseted was considered controversial for women, as it suggested intimacy. In fact, many women across the country were arrested for appearing in public wearing Aesthetic costumes, as authorities and more conservative citizens associated this type of dress with prostitution.
But for most wealthy women, the influence of the Aesthetic Dress movement on their wardrobes took the form of the Tea Gowns. Like most dresses that could be considered “Aesthetic,” Tea Gowns were loose and meant to be worn without a corset. However, they were less controversial than the Aesthetic ensembles of more artistic and progressive women. This is because they were not typically worn in public or in the company of the opposite sex. Tea Gowns were a common ensemble for hosts of all-female teas that were held in the wearer’s home. Thus, because no men were in attendance, Tea Gowns were socially acceptable in these scenarios. Mainstream magazines like Harper’s Bazar were not especially keen on the Tea Gown and cautioned their readers not to appear wearing one in public.
“Gilded Age Fashion”
For a sense of what was at stake, see “The Corset X-Rays of Dr Ludovic O’Followell (1908)“
“What is it that happens in an inflation? The unit of money suddenly loses its identity.”*…
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Consumer Price Index for the month of March. Here is some important context to help understand the figures…
When inflation numbers come out on April 13, they will likely look very high. And measured annually, inflation will probably rise further over the next few months. These headline numbers will be used to argue against the American Jobs Plan and future infrastructure investments, and even to advocate austerity.
But this response will be wrong, for three reasons:
1) The high year-over-year inflation of the coming months will reflect the falling prices of a year ago, whether or not prices are rising more rapidly today.
2) Achieving the Federal Reserve’s price-stability goals requires a period of above-trend inflation; if inflation, correctly measured, rises modestly in the coming months, that’s a good thing.
3) Even if inflation is a genuine problem, scaling back infrastructure investment is not the solution. It might even make the problem worse…
The full explanation at “The Illusion of Inflation: Why This Spring’s Numbers Will Look Artificially High.”
(Image above: source)
* Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
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As we steel ourselves, we might spare a thought for James Buchanan “Diamond Jim” Brady; he died on this date in 1917. A businessman and celebrity in the Gilded Age, he made his fortune semi-scrupulously in the rail industry and less scrupulously in stock trading and fixed bets.
His appetites for indulgences of all sorts were legendarily huge; but his nickname was a nod to the main among them– to his obsession with jewels, especially diamonds. He amassed stones worth $2 million (equivalent to approximately $61,464,000 in 2019 dollars).
“I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars”*…
If you think that our democracy cannot endure with the economic inequality that afflicts the 21st century, go back to the Gilded Age, when Americans worried that the nation could not stand with the economic inequality that arose in the late 19th century. If you think that the nature of work is changing dramatically, go back to the Gilded Age, when the economy was transformed. If you worry that changes in the environment are threatening health and humanity, go back to the Gilded Age when urbanization and industrialization gave birth to those worries. These parallels allow us to step back from the concerns we’re immersed in now and think about our world in new ways. The long lens of history shows us what we’re too myopic to see in the present…
Historian of the period Richard White recommends “The best books on The Gilded Age.” His five choices are each and all eminently worthy of reading; but his explanations for his choices are an education in themselves.
* Mark Twain, The Gilded Age
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As we peer into the not-so-distant-mirror, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867, at the dawn of the Gilded Age, that U.S. Secretary of State William Seward and Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl agreed to a treaty effecting the purchase of Alaska by the U.S.; it was briskly ratified by Congress.
The transaction added 586,412 square miles of new territory to the United States at a cost of $7.2 million 1867 dollars (2 cents per acre); in 2019 dollars, the price was $132 million (37 cents per acre).
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