ABSTRACT
America began its swift rise to wealth and power in the late nineteenth century, when the country's coal and cast iron output rapidly overtook that of the British. The wealthy in the United States have increased their holdings relative to the nonwealthy. In some places where labor has thrived, members of the old feudal elite were less repressive in relations with labor than were the American elites and often shielded workers from the ravages of rising industrialism. Related to character and values, and the troubles of labor and the US economy, is the matter of executive competence. In many ways, an establishment and an oligarchy are the same, economist Lester Thurow writes, rich and well-connected people who marry each other and run their countries, but an establishment wants the system to work while an oligarchy sees no relation between the system's success and its own amassing of money. The most dangerous companions of raw capitalism have been depression and war.
