Today there are 100 or 1,000 times more laws regulating business than during the Gilded Age.
The result is more uniformity in standards of business practices, but also vastly less freedom to experiment & grow new types of business.
So those old-time giant "captains of industry" are now replaced by little corporals of corporate bureaucracy, more committed to following minute rules than to innovating new & better solutions to customer needs.
Point is: a more balanced view of the Gilded Age would note the US economic growth rate then rivaled that of, for example, China in recent years.
Those "captains of industry" dramatically transformed for the better both the landscape and standards of living of tens of millions of Americans.
The fact that "robber barons" didn't follow all new laws written in years since doesn't mean they were necessarily unethical by standards of that time.
By the way, if you are not yet a fan of Ayn Rand, I highly recommend her to you.
She has a brilliant analysis of exactly your concerns here, of which my words are but a poor reflection.
DiogenesLamp speaking of abolition: "It would have happened in the border states before it got to the deeper South, but the social dynamic were impossible to stop.
Many of the Slaveowners had become wealthy enough to feel guilty over their source of income. "
In a more normal course of events, Border States like Maryland, Delaware and even Missouri could well have faced abolition movements and followed their Northern cousins in gradual peaceful abolition.
Among the reasons for that is: absent cotton in those Border States, slavery was nowhere near as profitable as in the Deep South.
But slavery's extreme profitability is part of what made Deep Cotton South slave-holders adamant in opposing any whiff of suggestions regarding abolition.
Under no circumstances would they "go gentle into that good night" , period.
Anyway, my feelings about those old-time slave-holders is akin to that towards those Gilded Age "robber barons" you condemn so quickly.
Both categories lived under the laws of their time and really should not be so condemned for not obeying laws which had not yet been written.
See Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution regarding ex post facto laws.
DiogenesLamp speaking of peaceful abolition: "But Slavery was not the proximate cause of the war.
It was Slave produced money that was the cause, on both sides.
Again, my analogy is Pearl Harbor, about which you might argue the "proximate cause of war" was economics, since FDR had embargoed shipments of oil and other raw materials to Japan.
But there was no war, and indeed could have been no war because in 1941 88% of Americans opposed it, before Pearl Harbor.
So Pearl Harbor is the proximate cause of US entry into WWII.
The same logic applies to Fort Sumter.
Neither slavery nor economics, nor any other reason sometimes mentioned, was the "proximate cause" of war.
Confederate assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter was.
DiogenesLamp speaking of possible negotiations: "After the first year or so, the economic cause of the war became irrelevant.
Too much blood had been shed, and it had become a war of Domination and Revenge on the part of the North, and a war to get away from oppression on the part of the South."
But economics was never the cause of war, proximate or otherwise.
And, by the end of the first year of war, freedom for slaves was becoming a huge issue for the Union.
Regardless, my key point here still stands: Confederates could have stopped the war on any day of their own choosing, and could have negotiated much better terms than they received at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, but they refused and instead continued fighting until the bitter, bitter end.
Who is to blame for that?
Who is to blame for the fact it took A-bombs to convince Japan to surrender, "unconditionally"?
President Roosevelt, or Truman?
Nah.
Rationalizing Fort Sumter = Pearl Harbor in your mind, STILL??
That the Southern defenders of THEIR soil = Japs who bombed AMERICAN soil? REALLY??
(2) Northern casualties vs. 2,000? Have you SEEN film of the damage at Pearl?? Read THE history?
Your analytic analogous "logic" remains a stunning curiosity -- in faaaar off in a distant Universe.
Of course! However, that economic system was already deeply established; If it was to be abolished, it could only be done incrementally for obvious reasons, otherwise much of the South's economy would crash (and the North's textile factory profiteers also affected.) BUT THE MOVEMENT WAS IMMINENT.
Under no circumstances would they "go gentle into that good night" , period.
Why *should* the South have rolled over for an occupying military army who disrespected and dismissed their sovereignty?
It may be true in certain cases that a small number of Slave-Owners were adamant about maintaining and defending the slavery status quo tooth and nail, but NOT the vast majority. Again as a reminder, the end of Slavery as an institution WAS imminent; Even Southerners knew that and accepted it.
Another reminder: -- poor whites were *also* indentured "slaves," working to repay their own debts. Despite continued historical mythology, the South DID NOT nor would NOT fight the CW simply over MAINTAINING slavery; FACT: As has been proven, just a minuscule number of southerners actually owned slaves.
Anyway, my feelings about those old-time slave-holders is akin to that towards those Gilded Age "robber barons" you condemn so quickly. Both categories lived under the laws of their time and really should not be so condemned for not obeying laws which had not yet been written.
Here I agree with your assessment of "living under the laws of the time"; EXCEPT that the "Yankee" elites, aka Robber Barons OWNED the Banks AND created and owned The Game. Slave-Holder cotton producers were merely participating and profiteers themselves who shipped their product TO Robber Baron factories, within THEIR system.
Funny how "Slavery" didn't become an issue for a suddenly social justice warrior Lincoln and morally outraged North. UNTIL t was clear the Confederacy was willing to aggressively defend their soil.
My analogy is Pearl Harbor, about which you might argue the "proximate cause of war" was economics, since FDR had embargoed shipments of oil and other raw materials to Japan.Japan was busy expanding its sphere and empire to China and throughout surrounding Pacific Asia. The US Embargo was in reaction TO Japan's obvious plans. It was facilitated by design to slow down Japan's obvious wartime expansion and need for the natural resources like rubber and oil.
While you're busy insisting on creating the Pearl = Fort Sumter strawman meme, can you please point to the Confederacy's own Jap-like sphere of influence, and their expansionism of their empire by the sword? (no, THAT coercive sword would be wielded by LINCOLN and the NORTH.)
[Since] Pearl Harbor is the proximate cause of US entry into WWII. The same logic applies to Fort Sumter.
You can repeat that il-logical un-true meme a thousand more times --NOT on this planet, not in this Universe did it/does it apply in reality.
Neither slavery nor economics, nor any other reason sometimes mentioned, was the "proximate cause" of war. Confederate assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter was...economics was never the cause of war, proximate or otherwise.
Lol -- who are you trying to convince of that, "Confederate assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter" as essentially THE declaration of war?? You haven't read or understood a SINGLE solitary word, sentence or paragraph by DiogenesLamp in addressing the dynamics and "cause" of Lincoln's War against the South (as well as the Fort Sumter subterfuge) IN CLEAR AND CONCISE DETAIL, have you?
Your cognitive dissonance and wall of ignorance (will all due respect) is absolutely stunning.
Wait -- I see you just tripled down on your delusion:
Regardless, my key point here still stands: Confederates could have stopped the war on any day of their own choosing...Who is to blame for that?
REALLY?? Again here's THE MEMO: The tyrannically insane Lincoln and his Robber Baron overlords who plotted the incident at Fort Sumter via subterfuge; An Abe Lincoln (who by his writings appeared to regret his decision in the FIRST PLACE) and his Robber Baron/Banker elite overlords insisted the South be subjugated, coerced, cratered, plundered, and razed for daring to defend THE RIGHT to their own liberty, economic preservation, and personal and State sovereignty.
Who is to blame for the fact it took A-bombs to convince Japan to surrender, "unconditionally"? President Roosevelt, or Truman?
*SMH* so now you're justifying Sherman's and the North's brutality, plunder, and scorched earth policy AND making it as necessary or peace as dropping an A-Bomb on say Richmond and Charleston? Wow.
Post WWII Japan was treated with faaar more respect and dignity than the Post-CW Confederacy. Can you explain WHY that was. Joey?
These memes of yours -- that Japan = The Confederacy; Lincoln's North = WWII America; Fort Sumter = Pearl Harbor and its fictional analogy; the fictional similarities between a Confederacy DEFENDING itself vs. a Fascist-Expansionist Japan...and finally the terms of "surrender."
You aren't even dealing with Apples vs. Oranges; You are offering analogies, events and "facts" that are so utterly bizarre, that they can't be remotely be considered from any intellectual degree of honesty and reality.
You see two round spheres and base you analogies on THAT, Ex: An Orange vs. the Planet Mars.