In praising the early 20th Century, Rand Paul was correct that it was a time of few government efforts to regulate business. But he also might have mentioned there were no pure-food-and-drug laws, no progressive income tax, no votes for women, and a U.S. Senate called “the Millionaires’ Club.”
He also did not discuss how “robber barons” amassed fortunes with scant regard to legalities, how government protection of “free enterprise” ...
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When we seem vectored to repeat history, it is good to try to remember it. This may allow a change of course. Katz presents some forgotten history lessons.
Although our system is not quite as corrupted and venal as was the "Gilded Age", this is a helpful discussion that brings forward commonalities in public memes between the present and that time. I think its helpful to show how several contemporary political heroes made up a Utopian past and gained support for a future based on that fiction.
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