Who Wants to Be a Billionaire (in 1916)? (You, the average Middle Class American wouldn't want to)

Having bestowed the presidency on a candidate who described their country as a “hellhole” besieged by multitudes trying to get into it, Americans need an antidote for social hypochondria. Fortunately, one has arrived from Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek.

He has good news: You are as rich as John D. Rockefeller. Richer, actually.

Some historians estimate that on September 29, 1916, a surge in the price of Rockefeller’s shares of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey made him America’s first billionaire. Others say he never reached this milestone and that Henry Ford was the first. Never mind. If Rockefeller was the first, his billion was worth $23 billion in today’s dollars. Boudreaux asks if you would accept this bargain: You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you consent to live in 1916.

Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefeller’s riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but un-air-conditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a time-consuming chore.

Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo, or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing.

If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease, or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology. And don’t even think about getting a 1916 toothache. You can afford state-of-the-art 1916 dentures, and probably will need them. Your arthritic hips and knees? Hobble along until you cannot hobble any more, then buy a wheelchair. Birth control in 1916 will be primitive, unreliable, and not conducive to pleasure.

As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle-class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means.

You could enjoy a smattering of early jazz, but rock ‘n’ roll is decades distant, and Netflix and Google even more so. Your pastimes would be limited, but you could measure the passage of time on the finest Swiss watch. It, however, would be less accurate than today’s Timex or smartphone.

As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle-class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means. Intellectually, your 1916 range of cultural choices would be paltry compared with today’s. And your moral tranquility might be disturbed by the contrast between your billionaire’s life and that of the normal American.

In 2015, a Bureau of Labor Statistics paper described the life of workers in 1915. More than half (52.4 percent) of the 100 million Americans were younger than 25, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8), and fewer than 5 percent of Americans were 65 or older. One in ten babies died in the first year of life (today, one in 168). A large majority of births were not in hospitals (today, fewer than 1 percent).

In 1915, only about 14 percent of people ages 14–17 were in high school, an estimated 18 percent ages 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 75 percent of women working in factories had left school before eighth grade. There were four renters for every homeowner, partly because mortgages (usually for just five to seven years) required down payments of 40–50 percent of the purchase price.

Fewer than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors — the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915 — were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1915 had: General Motors’ Frigidaire debuted in 1918.

So, thank Boudreaux for making you think about this: How large would your net worth have to be to get you to swap the life you are living in “hellhole” America for what that money could buy in 1916?

“Sorry, the colt 45 did exist in 1916. And back then it was actually a good gun.”

If NRx is talking about Colt’s Government Model autoloading pistol, selected as US Pistol M1911, only five years earlier than George Will’s comparison year, it is true that Colt’s began making them for sale to the civilian market almost immediately.

And while it was “better” in terms of feed reliability than other autoloaders of that day, it was still much less reliable than a revolver (probability of a successful second shot 1/5000, revolver v. autoloader). Not until the 1980s did autoloaders begin catching up.

In 1916, “Colt 45” meant the 45 rimmed revolver round introduced in 1873. As an interim measure, in 1909 the US War Dept purchased some 30,000 double-action revolvers of Colt’s New Service pattern. Officially designated US Revolver M1909, it chambered what we now call 45 Long Colt. Rims were a little bigger than the original.

Even loaded with black powder, 45 Long Colt handily outperformed the 45 rimless cartridge we now call 45 ACP. And it’s still routinely available, in revolvers of double action and single action configuration.

Stupid article. We had international travel back then, and long before.

Yup,we did.But consider my family's travel history:

Paternal grandmother: born in Ireland,came to the US (NYC to be precise) at the age of 6 months.Immediately moved to Connecticut for a short period and then on to Boston,where she lived for the rest of her life.During her life after arrival in Boston she visited her daughter in Vermont several times,having passed through New Hampshire to get there.

So her 73 year long lifetime travel history was: Ireland,New York (a few hours),Connecticut,Massachusetts,New Hampshire and Vermont.

Her son,my Dad,traveled regularly to Europe and Asia on business and to Europe with my Mom on vacation.

I've traveled frequently to Europe,a half dozen times to various points in Asia,three times to Africa,three times to Australia and twice to South America.

And my Mom,Dad and I were/are all never anything more than "middle class".

That’s early to pass away. There were some flu types that killed a lot of people at the turn of the century.

My family...both sides...were *very* poor when they left Ireland (125+ years ago) and when they arrived in Boston they found themselves in the poorest part of the city.A hundred years ago the Irish were the n*ggers of Boston,blacks not having yet arrived from the South.My Dad's older brother used to tell stories of routinely seeing signs in the windows of employers "No Irish Need Apply".

Poor housing conditions,poor nutrition,no access to health care (thanks to poverty) were the culprits for us...and others as well.

On the other hand if you look at early pictures everyone is pretty think where now we have a lot of very heavy people. I wonder if we have reached a peak and are starting to decline in terms of physical health.

I think you're right on that.But obesity is most assuredly a "disease" of prosperity.I've done some traveling in Third World parts of the world and I guarantee that you don't see obesity there.As for a decline in health...if that's actually happening most Americans have nobody to blame but themselves,IMO.

I think the author is off-base. Being able to get many modern things (sometimes only in very small quantities) is not a sign of wealth on our part as individuals. It is a sign of the collective wealth of our society reflected in diversified specialization.

The fundamental import of the article, IMHO, is the success of

Article 1 Section 8.:
The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .
American socialists style themselves “progressives,” and yet they oppose us so-called “conservatives” at every turn with their environmental-whackoism which is in a real sense conservative to the point of regressiveness.
“Conservatives” who promote “drill, baby, drill” are the actual progressives whose prescriptions are aimed at making goods more plentiful and cheaper.
And socialists’ nostrums which prevent economic progress are not limited to environmentalism, either. Scratch a Democrat and a proponent of wage and price controls will yell. But what is price control but reaction??? Free-market prices reflect the net effect on society and on individual people of changes - which may on net be positive changes - in conditions.

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