Robber Barons vs. Tech Giants - Are We Learning From Our Past?

Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” History of course can’t exactly repeat itself. There are too many variables at play that differentiate circumstances. However, those circumstances can still be similar. Because of that, we can still learn from the past, though we often don’t. A case in point is the similarity between various global monopolies and those of the robber barons in the later part of the 19th century.  These men controlled vast swaths of the United States economy, giving them the ability to have a huge effect on national policy and to dictate their employees’ lives far beyond anything that most people in the Western world will have experienced. Not only would they use their large coffers to ‘lobby’ politicians, they would also buy out anyone who looked to be a competitive threat. One might reasonably point out that these start-up companies didn’t have to sell. Technically, that’s true. In reality, that underestimates the determination of the bigger co