You're missing something important: back in those days, we didn't have to funnel all our wealth to a small number of billionaires (in fact, the term didn't real

You're missing something important: back in those days, we didn't have to funnel all our wealth to a small number of billionaires (in fact, the term didn't really exist back then). Now, we do. Giving the vast majority of our wealth to a few billionaires like Gates, Buffet, Bezos, etc. costs a lot. So yeah, we simply can't afford this kind of stuff any more.