Why the Gilded Age Never Really Ended

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In 1890, the richest 1% of Americans owned 51% of all wealth. By 1978, after decades of progressive taxation, union power, and financial regulation, that number had fallen to 22%. Then it started climbing again. By 2025, the top 1% held 31% and rising. The top 0.01% — about 18,000 families — now hold more wealth than their Gilded Age equivalents in 1913. Every structural protection built between 1890 and 1940 to prevent a return to Gilded Age concentration has been weakened, gutted, or repealed. The Gilded Age did not end. It was interrupted for 50 years. Now it is back.

This video reveals how a specific system of regulations — Glass-Steagall, progressive taxation, union protections, antitrust enforcement — was constructed piece by piece between 1933 and 1950 to prevent another Gilded Age. You'll see how these protections compressed wealth concentration for half a century, creating the broadest period of shared prosperity in American history. Then you'll watch each protection get systematically dismantled between 1980 and 2005, and see the wealth concentration curve snap back to exactly where it had been before.

The top marginal tax rate was cut from 70% to 28% between 1981 and 1988. Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. Union membership collapsed from 35% to under 6%. Antitrust enforcement effectively ceased after 1984. The ProPublica investigation found that by 2018, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid lower effective tax rates than any other income group. The mechanisms that ended the first Gilded Age have been neutralized. The concentration is not approaching Gilded Age levels — it has surpassed them.

The protections worked. They were removed. The concentration returned. This is not a mystery. It is cause and effect.

📑 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Introduction
1:47 - The System That Worked
3:58 - The Golden Years
5:07 - The Tax Revolution
7:32 - Deregulation and Repeal
9:20 - Labor's Collapse
10:28 - The Return of Monopolies
14:11 - Political Capture
16:11 - Can It Happen Again?
19:26 - The Pattern Complete

📜 SOURCES & REFERENCES
Gabriel Zucman – World Inequality Database (2022)
Thomas Piketty – "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" (2014)
Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman – "The Triumph of Injustice" (2019)
ProPublica – "The Secret IRS Files" Investigation (2021)
Federal Reserve – Survey of Consumer Finances (Historical Data)
U.S. Census Bureau – Historical Income Tables
National Labor Relations Board – Union Membership Data (1935-2025)

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