>>Another problem is that the current captains of industry lack the sense of noblesse oblige that led the “robber barons” of the Gilded Age to endow libraries and suchlike. (Silicon Valley is something of an exception; note that the tech CEOs generally have better public reputations than their industrial and (especially) high-finance brethren.
You’re right. The “robber barons” generally thought of themselves as the builders of a great nation with a great sense of responsibility to leave it better than that found it. Today’s CEOs see themselves as the leaseholders of a great nation that is inhabited by replaceable minions.