As the full effects of the Industrial Revolution spread from Europe to America, the free enterprise atmosphere of the United States became a far different thing from the European practice of laissez faire. The game of making money in the United States was rough and savage, devoid of sportsmanship. The gentleman's rapier gave way to the roughneck's brass knuckles.
In the United States, any man could prove his worth through business success, regardless of his ancestry, and money became the passport for entrance into the upper classes. Men such as William H. Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and J. P. Morgan dedicated themselves to ruining competitors. They gave no quarter. In their public dealings, these robber barons were guided by J. P. Morgan's sentiment: "I owe the public nothing."
From 1865 through the early part of the twentieth century, dishonesty was a virtue, the investor a gullible fool, and the stock market a private casino which the public financed. A practical demonstration was William Rockefeller and Henry Rogers' purchase of Anaconda Copper Company by paper manipulation and without a cent of personal investment—resulting in a $36,000,000 profit. Official economists viewed this scene unperturbed, their thoughts wrapped up with such terms as enterprise, thrift and accumulation, and consumption. At best, they apologized only slightly and shared the common blindness: They were too close to the scene to judge objectively. What was needed was the disinterested, detached view of an outsider, which was ultimately filled by the most aloof of skeptics, Thorstein Veblen.
