Excessive Profits
Excessive Profits
Wealth, Morality, and the Common People
This chapter discusses how the wealthy provided a contrasting category—an “other”—that offered ordinary, nonwealthy Americans ways to think about who we were by discussing who we were not. The wealthy had what everyone else presumably wanted: money, power, lavish homes, the wherewithal to live in luxury. They could be the standard to which ordinary people aspired, the best evidence that the American Dream could be attained. However, popular discussions frequently set them apart negatively. Their wealth and power seemed excessive, undemocratic, perhaps immoral, and at times harmful to the well-being of society. Criticism increased during economic crises and when concentrated wealth seemed to be accumulating at everyone else's expense. Critics said the wealthy were greedy, shallow, unfair, manipulative, perhaps guilty of fraud, and on occasion guilty of profiteering. The criticisms also reflected ideals to which ordinary people were expected to adhere.
Keywords: profiteering, profiteers, American middle class, nineteenth century
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