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It was a time of progress in terms of the economic growth of the US, but there was also increasing political corruption alongside other serious problems in society, such as the upper level of society growing much richer than the lower majority. this was especially true because of the large number of immigrants coming to settle in the US. Some reforms were discussed to address these issues, but the main attitude (among the ruling class, and some of the other classes as well) was that life should take its natural course without interference. In effect, this was meaning the government should not try to control business in any way, including no laws for the protection of workers seeking minimum wages, no laws against working 60 (or more) hours per week, no having the right to form unions, etc.

This was thought, at least among some, to be the new "scientific" outlook. So big business could exploit the common worker in the Gilded Age because that was the so-called natural way of business---"survival of the fittest." Thus, such survival--or law of the jungle as its critics sometime called it---was supposedly 'scientific' according to such leading 19th century thinkers like Darwin. who had recently theorized in the evolution of animals rising up from the jungle to becoming civilized beings. Darwin himself never said anything about this use of his evolution theories being used to justify "Social Darwinism."

Many big businesses did not take this semi-scientific look at things and thought that they were simply doing a moral good by creating big businesses which would let their wealth trickle down to growing numbers in society through increased jobs. Although big companies sometimes got together in secret to control markets with high and unfair prices to the consumers. This sort of thing contributed to the creation and perpetuation of the upper thin layer of wealth in society (the gilded part). That outside thin layer of richness--the gilding (from "golding")---did much better than the comparatively "unpainted" massive part of the population beneath the shiny surface of improving American life.

It was thus an era of great contrast, with notable growth in technology and industry, providing increased wealth and great monuments for the nation overall, but with a heavily uneven distribution of that wealth to the most very rich.

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12y ago

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