Capitalism in America: The Cult of Wealth - Season 1

First aired: 11/7/2023 3 episodes

From the Gilded Age to the present day, the history of modern United States of America has been one of wealth and power concentrated into the hands of a few families with enormous fortunes.

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Episodes

1. A Paradise for Millionaires (1870-1920)

Aired: 11/7/2023

At the end of the 19th century, a club of millionaires — John D. Rockefeller and his oil monopoly, steel king and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and banker J. P. Morgan, who financed the Industrial Revolution from Wall Street — took over the United States, where immigrants provided a labor force that was ruthlessly exploited.

2. Making the Rich Pay (1921-1946)

Aired: 11/7/2023

The millionaires' paradise was destroyed by the crash of 1929, which plunged the country into the Great Depression and mass unemployment. Enraged by greed and tax evasion, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, reelected in 1936, advocated controlled capitalism.

3. Who Wants to Be a Billionaire? (1981-Today)

Aired: 11/7/2023

The federal welfare state controlled American capitalism until the 1973 oil crisis and recession, which led to the election of the ultra-liberal Ronald Reagan. At the dawn of the computer revolution, a generation of entrepreneurs, including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, emerged in Silicon Valley around Stanford University, which combined public and private research.