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Description:

How did the wealthy justify their status and privilege? Other than the customary way of having large gold statues built in their likeness with signs that said "it's cool, we're super wealthy, don't worry about it"? 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by robber barons,

00:06

criminals with excellent taste.

00:09

Yeah. All right, take a look at this excerpt.

00:11

[ mumbles ]

00:15

[ mumbling continues ]

00:18

And the question: The wealthy justified their status

00:22

and privilege by... what?

00:24

And here are your potential answers.

00:26

[ bell rings ]

00:27

[ mumbles ] All right.

00:31

Well, from the excerpt we can see that wealthy industrialists

00:34

used ideas like Social Darwinism

00:36

to justify their incredible wealth in relation to the very poor.

00:41

So let's see which answer describes another way these

00:43

one percenters convinced the public that their boatloads of cash

00:47

were well-deserved.

00:50

Did the wealthy justify their status and privilege by

00:53

A - lobbying for reforms such as the eight hour work day?

00:58

Well, actually, all that wealth came at the expense of

01:01

the employees whom they habitually disregarded in their quest

01:04

for financial gain.

01:05

These industrialists broke strikes, suppressed dissent,

01:09

and forced workers to toil for grueling hours

01:12

all for capital P "Profit."

01:14

So the boss of the year award goes to...

01:17

none of these guys.

01:18

That eliminates A and B.

01:20

Could the wealthy have defended their status by C -

01:23

promoting more immigrants and minorities?

01:25

Well, these tycoons had no interest in doing any favors for their workers,

01:29

so promoting diversity wasn't even on their radar.

01:32

So it isn't C, either.

01:34

Which means that the wealthy justified their privilege by

01:36

D - committing highly visible acts of philanthropy.

01:40

During this time period, industrialists donated an insane amount of money

01:43

to charitable causes, including the arts,

01:46

public education, and medical research.

01:48

Of course, many of them did this as a way to divert attention

01:52

away from the horrible wrongs their companies were committing.

01:55

But at least we got Carnegie Hall, right?

01:58

So the correct answer is D. Looks like bad money actually

02:01

broke up the good.

02:04

[ Oh, my bones. ]

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