Posted on 09/14/2019 9:38:24 AM PDT by TBP
We study history to learn from it. If we can discover what worked and what didn’t work, we can use this knowledge wisely to create a better future. Studying the triumph of American industry, for example, is important because it is the story of how the United States became the world’s leading economic power. Free markets worked well; government intervention usually failed.
The years when this happened, from 1865 to the early 1900s, saw the U.S. encourage entrepreneurs indirectly by limiting government. Slavery was abolished and so was the income tax. Federal spending was slashed and federal budgets had surpluses almost every year in the late 1800s. In other words, the federal government created more freedom and a stable marketplace in which entrepreneurs could operate.
To some extent, during the late 1800s—a period historians call the “Gilded Age”—American politicians learned from the past. They had dabbled in federal subsidies from steamships to transcontinental railroads, and those experiments dismally failed. Politicians then turned to free markets as a better strategy for economic development. The world-dominating achievements of Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles Schwab validated America’s unprecedented limited government. And when politicians sometimes veered off course later with government interventions for tariffs, high income taxes, anti-trust laws, and an effort to run a steel plant to make armor for war—the results again often hindered American economic progress. Free markets worked well; government intervention usually failed.
(Excerpt) Read more at fee.org ...
Bttt
Netflix had a series called The Men Who Built America, all about those men. I don’t think the term Robber Baron was used once. Instead, they showed how they were single minded men of their times.
I remember reading about John D. Rockefeller who made his fortune by illuminating America.
Kerosene was available only to the rich as it cost several dollars a gallon. Rockefeller began shipping it in rail car tankers instead of small barrels, bringing the cost to about $.50 a gallon, thus enabling every home and farmhouse across America to have some light in their home after 7pm.
It helped make him the richest man ever and improved the lives of millions.
Great post!
Walmart has done more to alleviate poverty than any government program. How do you get the left to acknowledge it?
Walmart??
The money extorted from the public under the guise of “freedom” is distorting politics and personalities to this day. In the form of tax free foundations. These people moved their money to a place PURPOSELY FORMED to hide their wealth permanently, yet give the the power to influence all of life with it without spending a dime of it.
Robber Barons, a perfect word for them all. From Carnegie, through Soros, Gates and Paul Allen.
Don’t tell Gail Combs the ‘robber barons’ didn’t exist ...
Spoiler alert: Marxist historians.
The “robber barons” were value producers/creators. Giverment officials, politicians, and bureaucrats are value destroyers/usurpers.
re: “These people moved their money to a place PURPOSELY FORMED to hide their wealth permanently, yet give the the power to influence all of life with it without spending a dime of it.”
Fail to see how this makes them “robber barons”.
You DON’T have to follow the ‘precepts’ these people put down, you know ...
YEAH! Discount all the endowments to Universities, the Arts, Libraries and civic improvements,fountains statues etc.. To say nothing of the jobs they provided. They don’t count or matter.
Those “Barons” gave back more to the citizenry than the government ever did by grabbing their taxes and wealth . JMHO!
Until they joined the Leftists starting with an assault on the 2nd Amendment...
I think he was referring to one of the many Congressmen who had been bought & paid for by the Trusts.
#5 the democrats are only interested in getting blackmail money.
They throw bricks at everyone hoping someone pays them off like say Microsoft did. See MSnbc as an example.
There were plenty of crooks too.
Mark Twain was interested in the return of his money.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and James J. Hill knew about railroad rate regulation.
Just so the opponents of Amendment II know, here is Section 3 of Amendment XIV:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Elected Republicans need to be especially careful, the Democrats in Congress will show you no mercy.
As one of the towns have declared the NRA a terrorist organization than this technically applies to any NRA members.
Yes - that’s silly but I guarantee the Dems will make that case.
Commies gonna Commie.
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