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The experiment wasn't even necessary - the Gilded Age was a libertarian's paradise with the gold standard and very little government regulation. What do we most

The experiment wasn't even necessary - the Gilded Age was a libertarian's paradise with the gold standard and very little government regulation. What do we most associate with this era? Robber barons, utility monopolies screwing people over with ruthless business practices, confidence men and literal snake oil quack medicine. I genuinely can't think of a good (ie moral) reason to support the idea given how it is predicted to, and has been shown to, play out.

logicchains 4y ago
>The experiment wasn't even necessary - the Gilded Age was a libertarian'paradise with the gold standard and very little government regulation. What do we most associate with this era? Robber barons, utility monopolies screwing people over with ruthless business practices, confidence men and literal snake oil quack medicine. The rate of economic growth and improvement in people's living standards was much higher back then than it is now. Similarly the average adult back then was much healthier than the average adult nowadays, who is likely overweight or obese with some chronic illness. In spite of the vast amount of pills modern people take. So healthcare hasn't necessarily improved much either.
- soco 4y ago
  I don't know what the Gilded Age was (and too lazy to search) but, I quote "Over the past 160 years, life expectancy (from birth) in the United States has risen from 39.4 years in 1860, to 78.9 years in 2020"[1] so please do show some support for the affirmation "the average adult back then was much healthier". Unless you mean they all died healthy around 40 years of age - as in, they were totally healthy until 40 then the first illness killed them clean. [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    While your point is absolutely true, note that life expectancy shouldn't be taken as the literal age most people die. It is the expected value of your age at death. Just like the expected value of a coin flip being heads is 0.5, but no coin is ever 0.5 heads. Life expectancy at birth in the times before modern medicine has always been dragged down significantly by the huge rate of infant mortality. It was more common for a family to have 1-2 dead small children in their past than not. People who lived past 5 or 10 or so would often live to see 70 or so, and 80 or 90 year olds were not unheard of.
    - soco 4y ago
      That's the nice thing about statistics, we will always have outliers to cherry pick. One can play with the graph at will, but also US men life expectancy at 5yo increased from 55 to 80 in the last 150 years: https://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US39-01.html https://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US39-01.html. That's without infant mortality.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- beaconstudios 4y ago
  > The rate of economic growth and improvement in people's living standards was much higher back then than it is now. During the industrial revolution? I would expect so. At this point we're on the tail end of those improvements. > Similarly the average adult back then was much healthier than the average adult nowadays, who is likely overweight or obese with some chronic illness. Life expectancy has been going up for a long time, but on the obesity front the advent of highly sugary foods thanks to food giants is a result of profiteering, not regulation, and people driving everywhere instead of getting exercise is not because of regulation (though it is due to city planning). > So healthcare hasn't necessarily improved much either. Are you sincerely arguing that modern medicine isn't much of an improvement over snake oil medicine? The discovery of penicillin alone has saved literally billions* of lives, to say nothing of painkillers, modern surgical hygiene, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, just so so many improvements in healthcare. I can't take this argument seriously I'm afraid, I can only assume it's a post hoc rationalisation. * hundreds of millions, I misremembered the number.
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  So we can ignore that cancer used to be a guaranteed death sentence, polio was a thing, children got rickets, a septic wound could kill you, an ulcer wasn't a course of pills to get rid of, tuberculosis was rife. The gilded age was no paradise and rose tinted views of the era just don't hold up to scrutiny.
  - rabuse 4y ago
    Most of this was eradicated by simple increases in hygienic ability, not some overpriced medical miracle.
    - beaconstudios 4y ago
      Polio was solved by vaccines, and sepsis was partly solved by hygiene and partly by antibiotics. Modern medicine has helped with many conditions.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>What do we most associate with this era? Robber barons, utility monopolies screwing people over with ruthless business practices, confidence men and literal snake oil quack medicine. Speak for yourself. Most well read people associate it with urbanization (made possible by industrialization of agriculture) and huge standard of living improvements that came with the long tail of industrialization. Such "luxuries" as off the shelf clothing, meat products, electric lights, etc. etc became readily available to the common man at a price he could afford at that time.
- beaconstudios 4y ago
  Okay to clarify, I meant the excesses of the age. It was also a time of expansion driven by the inventions and discoveries of the industrial revolution and the discovery of oil. But when people make the argument that libertarian policy would lead to the market moderating companies' and entrepreneurs' worst instincts, I think the Gilded Age shows otherwise.

logicchains 4y ago

>The experiment wasn't even necessary - the Gilded Age was a libertarian'paradise with the gold standard and very little government regulation. What do we most associate with this era? Robber barons, utility monopolies screwing people over with ruthless business practices, confidence men and literal snake oil quack medicine. The rate of economic growth and improvement in people's living standards was much higher back then than it is now. Similarly the average adult back then was much healthier than the average adult nowadays, who is likely overweight or obese with some chronic illness. In spite of the vast amount of pills modern people take. So healthcare hasn't necessarily improved much either.

soco 4y ago
I don't know what the Gilded Age was (and too lazy to search) but, I quote "Over the past 160 years, life expectancy (from birth) in the United States has risen from 39.4 years in 1860, to 78.9 years in 2020"[1] so please do show some support for the affirmation "the average adult back then was much healthier". Unless you mean they all died healthy around 40 years of age - as in, they were totally healthy until 40 then the first illness killed them clean. [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  While your point is absolutely true, note that life expectancy shouldn't be taken as the literal age most people die. It is the expected value of your age at death. Just like the expected value of a coin flip being heads is 0.5, but no coin is ever 0.5 heads. Life expectancy at birth in the times before modern medicine has always been dragged down significantly by the huge rate of infant mortality. It was more common for a family to have 1-2 dead small children in their past than not. People who lived past 5 or 10 or so would often live to see 70 or so, and 80 or 90 year olds were not unheard of.
  - soco 4y ago
    That's the nice thing about statistics, we will always have outliers to cherry pick. One can play with the graph at will, but also US men life expectancy at 5yo increased from 55 to 80 in the last 150 years: https://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US39-01.html https://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US39-01.html. That's without infant mortality.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beaconstudios 4y ago
> The rate of economic growth and improvement in people's living standards was much higher back then than it is now. During the industrial revolution? I would expect so. At this point we're on the tail end of those improvements. > Similarly the average adult back then was much healthier than the average adult nowadays, who is likely overweight or obese with some chronic illness. Life expectancy has been going up for a long time, but on the obesity front the advent of highly sugary foods thanks to food giants is a result of profiteering, not regulation, and people driving everywhere instead of getting exercise is not because of regulation (though it is due to city planning). > So healthcare hasn't necessarily improved much either. Are you sincerely arguing that modern medicine isn't much of an improvement over snake oil medicine? The discovery of penicillin alone has saved literally billions* of lives, to say nothing of painkillers, modern surgical hygiene, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, just so so many improvements in healthcare. I can't take this argument seriously I'm afraid, I can only assume it's a post hoc rationalisation. * hundreds of millions, I misremembered the number.
smackeyacky 4y ago
So we can ignore that cancer used to be a guaranteed death sentence, polio was a thing, children got rickets, a septic wound could kill you, an ulcer wasn't a course of pills to get rid of, tuberculosis was rife. The gilded age was no paradise and rose tinted views of the era just don't hold up to scrutiny.
- rabuse 4y ago
  Most of this was eradicated by simple increases in hygienic ability, not some overpriced medical miracle.
  - beaconstudios 4y ago
    Polio was solved by vaccines, and sepsis was partly solved by hygiene and partly by antibiotics. Modern medicine has helped with many conditions.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

>What do we most associate with this era? Robber barons, utility monopolies screwing people over with ruthless business practices, confidence men and literal snake oil quack medicine. Speak for yourself. Most well read people associate it with urbanization (made possible by industrialization of agriculture) and huge standard of living improvements that came with the long tail of industrialization. Such "luxuries" as off the shelf clothing, meat products, electric lights, etc. etc became readily available to the common man at a price he could afford at that time.

beaconstudios 4y ago
Okay to clarify, I meant the excesses of the age. It was also a time of expansion driven by the inventions and discoveries of the industrial revolution and the discovery of oil. But when people make the argument that libertarian policy would lead to the market moderating companies' and entrepreneurs' worst instincts, I think the Gilded Age shows otherwise.