ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by robber barons,

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criminals with excellent taste.

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Yeah. All right, take a look at this excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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And the question: The wealthy justified their status

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and privilege by... what?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ bell rings ]

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[ mumbles ] All right.

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Well, from the excerpt we can see that wealthy industrialists

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used ideas like Social Darwinism

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to justify their incredible wealth in relation to the very poor.

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So let's see which answer describes another way these

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one percenters convinced the public that their boatloads of cash

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were well-deserved.

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Did the wealthy justify their status and privilege by

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A - lobbying for reforms such as the eight hour work day?

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Well, actually, all that wealth came at the expense of

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the employees whom they habitually disregarded in their quest

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for financial gain.

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These industrialists broke strikes, suppressed dissent,

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and forced workers to toil for grueling hours

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all for capital P "Profit."

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So the boss of the year award goes to...

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none of these guys.

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That eliminates A and B.

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Could the wealthy have defended their status by C -

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promoting more immigrants and minorities?

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Well, these tycoons had no interest in doing any favors for their workers,

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so promoting diversity wasn't even on their radar.

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So it isn't C, either.

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Which means that the wealthy justified their privilege by

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D - committing highly visible acts of philanthropy.

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During this time period, industrialists donated an insane amount of money

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to charitable causes, including the arts,

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public education, and medical research.

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Of course, many of them did this as a way to divert attention

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away from the horrible wrongs their companies were committing.

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But at least we got Carnegie Hall, right?

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So the correct answer is D. Looks like bad money actually

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broke up the good.

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[ Oh, my bones. ]

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