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Bookends to a Gentler Capitalism: Complicating the Notion of First and Second Gilded Ages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2020
Abstract
The narrative of a second Gilded Age erroneously suggests that the current dynamics are repeating those of the late nineteenth century. Although they share certain important characteristics, these are profoundly different historical moments. Focusing on the history of capitalism and labor, and taking a global perspective, demonstrates that the two periods were bookends—the “before” and “after” to a lengthy period when the cruelest characteristics of corporate capitalism were temporarily constrained. The late nineteenth century saw the ascent of serious efforts to rein in the power of the new capitalism and force it to bow down to the needs of civil society. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, we are experiencing the decline of that effort as capitalists and their ideological and political supporters push to see how far they can go to ensure the unchallenged hegemony of corporate and property rights. The slow climb toward a more humane capitalism and the rapid descent away from it constitute two very different experiences.
- Type
- Special Issue: A Second Gilded Age?
- Information
- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 197 - 205
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2020
References
Notes
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