The Impact of the Politics of Inequality on American Democracy in the Gilded Age

• In Event: Inequality and America's Fragile Democracy

Abstract

When Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the 1830s, he was struck by the “equality of condition” he found among Americans; by the time Lord James Bryce retraced de Tocqueville’s journey several decades later, he was struck by widening economic inequality, as he observed growing poverty as well as the emergence of oligarchs. Indeed, while the United States in the early republic featured modest levels of economic inequality compared to those in Europe, by the late 19th century, income and wealth became far more unequally distributed. How would these developments affect democracy?

Some scholars who investigate the well-being of democracy worldwide argue that vast differences of wealth spell danger. The problem is not typically that the oppressed rise up and seize power, but the reverse: the wealthy few, who fear that a democratic political system will inevitably lead to popular demands that are either financed at their expense or that undercut their profits and autonomy, embrace a repressive regime in order to solidify their power. The US political system is widely assumed to provide safeguards against the emergence of such rule by the few. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which democracy itself was threatened by rising economic inequality in the Gilded Age, through what mechanisms, and with what consequences. Given that today we live in another era of soaring stratification by income and wealth, answering these questions may be helpful in considering implications for our own times.

Despite growing demands for reform, the United States initially greeted industrialization with governance that favored wealthy industrialists and bankers over workers and farmers. The courts favored the needs of expanding commerce and liberty of contract over the protection of workers, and labor unions often met with violent and bloody crackdowns. By the 1890s, economic inequality coincided with growing partisan polarization and the resurgence of government-sanctioned racism.

Within a couple of decades, the populists won some reforms—the progressive income tax, the prohibition of monopolies, and a few labor protections. They also secured protections for democracy, including the direct election of senators, presidents, and judges, and women’s suffrage. Yet these reforms had their limits: the racial bargain curtailed their reach, halting them at the color line; reforms for workers were modest, given the Supreme Court’s approach to the Constitution; and some reforms actually curtained democratic participation. Probing the politics of the Gilded Age can provide us with analytical leverage for better understanding how economic inequality may be affecting the politics of our own time.

Author

• Suzanne Mettler, Cornell University