> There are other reasons why progressive policies took hold, as in, basic awareness of alternatives to social inequality due to a decrease of it in general. Y

> There are other reasons why progressive policies took hold, as in, basic awareness of alternatives to social inequality due to a decrease of it in general. You cannot be serious. Progressive policies did not emerge in late-19th-century America, much less take hold, because there was a decrease in social inequality in general. This is the exact opposite of what the historical record shows us. Progressive policies emerged out of an increasingly wider recognition of social, political, and economic inequalities nationwide in the latter 19th century. This is what prompted farmers to band together with the labor movement to fight the railroads and banks, movements that were inherently critical of capitalism itself, and not just inequality of condition or remuneration. It wasn't a decrease in social inequality that fueled the drive for expanding suffrage. I simply cannot understand how one can hand-wave progressive achievements away when each of them were, sometimes violently, fought for and only secured after years, sometimes decades, of effort. America has been very reliable in making people work very hard to gain equality. > It's not like a plutocratic equivalent of "robber barons" did not exist prior, they were just aristocrats, and so their theft of capital from the lower classes was accepted as a social norm, a part of the "social contract", if you will. I'm beginning to wonder if you've studied much history at all. In what periods of modern history have aristocrats and "their theft of capital from the lower classes" been "accepted as a social norm, a part of the 'social contract'..."? Definitely not much since the 17th century in many Western nations. And always shakily before then, requiring either a balancing act on behalf of the aristocrats, or blatant displays and threats of force to protect it. Even when it wasn't subject to outright rebellion against its existence, it has always been a problem, and never been simply accepted. > If you look at economic indicators, you will find the numbers do not support your assertions. The best compiled data on this can be found in Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy" - income inequality in the US was relatively static if not improving over this time period... This is absolutely false. There are a plethora of historians and economists one can read further to understand these historical trends--Claudia Goldin, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Robert Margo, Simon Kuznets, Wojciech Kopczuk, Tony Judt, and many more. Until the interwar decades of the 20th century, income inequality was shown, as far back as a century, to have done little but rise. It's not even a fact disputed by any serious economist or historian of the period.