Literary Hub
We’re in classic Theory of the Leisure Class territory here, Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 bestselling critique of wealth accumulation over social good and the wasteful culture that blossomed in its wake. Melding economics with sociology, Veblen examined the way the era was being defined by the rise of the robber baron—industrialists like Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt who took advantage of the shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial one to accumulate massive amounts of wealth. The supremacy of the landed class was waning, and the new moneyed class advanced a flagrantly lavish culture that almost seemed to celebrate waste and needless expense.