A
century of ruling class romps
By Heather Cottin
New York
The arrogance of the ruling class is boundless. While
increasing numbers of people in this city are forced to depend
on soup kitchens and food pantries to stay alive, the leaders
of the world capitalist system will be plotting and partying at
the elegant Waldorf-Astoria hotel. They will be following a
long tradition begun by their class.
In the Gilded Age--the late 19th century--the Rockefellers,
Carnegies, Belmonts, Morgans and other ruling-class families
attended extravagant balls at the original Waldorf, then
located on Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
At one party, according to author Matthew Josephson in "The
Robber Barons," the men were given cigarettes wrapped in $100
bills and the women received 14-karat gold bracelets as favors.
There was a terrible economic depression in the period between
1890 and 1900. The annual amount necessary for a family to live
was about $500, according to the "Historical Statistics of the
U.S." In minutes, these industrialists and bankers smoked up
what amounted to one-fifth of a family's yearly survival.
One night in 1897, at the depth of another economic
depression, one of the fabulously wealthy men of the age,
Bradley Martin, had the entire lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria
transformed into a Hall of Mirrors like that in the French
monarchy's palace in Versailles. August Belmont wore a suit of
armor marked with gold inlay worth $10,000. Women wore
beautiful and expensive jewels as if they were corsages. (From
"Protestan tism in America: A Narrative History," by Jerald C.
Brauer)
The ruling rich, then as now, were aware of the poverty
running rampant through the cities and the poverty that was
forcing thousands of farmers off their land. They were the
cause of it all. How did the wealthy elite show their sympathy
for the plight of the workers? By throwing what they called
"poverty socials."
A Western millionaire had the ballroom in his home decorated
as a hobo camp and his ruling-class guests came in rags and
tatters. It cost $14,000 to serve them "hobo stew" on wooden
plates. The cost of the party was roughly equal to what it
would have cost to feed, house, clothe and provide for 2,800
families for a year.
But as the economy declined, working people, immigrants and
farmers joined together against the banks, the
corporations--the system workers called "wage slavery."
Populist leader Mary Lease thundered to a crowd in Kansas in
1890, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a
government of the people, by the people and for the people, but
a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall
Street."
The bigger they are,
the harder they fall
The city of New York paid the Astor family $17 million for
the land under the original Waldorf-Astoria. The Empire State
Building was later constructed on the former site of the hotel.
The new Waldorf-Astoria was opened at its present
location--with much ceremony as a playground for the ruling
classes--in 1931 during the Great Depression.
Now the Waldorf-Astoria is host to a new generation of
Robber Barons with their global view of manifest destiny.
Today's ruling class created the World Trade Organization to
assure their global dominance of capital over labor.
But they are not like the bourgeoisie of the late 19th
century who were mainly concerned with owning the means of
production in the United States.
These modern-day capitalists are meeting now to plan for
further global plunder. They have completed the conquest of the
world planned by the Robber Barons of the late 19th century.
But, like the capitalists of the late 19th century and the
1930s, they are worried. And for good reason.
As the capitalist financiers, corporate moguls and paid
policy wonks skulk around the Waldorf-Astoria, they know that
the economic crises of the late 19th century have multiplied
exponentially. The system is foundering and the World Economic
Forum has no idea how to save it.
The rich may feel secure in the Waldorf-Astoria. With police
between them and the angry protesters outside, they may believe
that the horrors of poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease and
the myriad ravages of capitalism will be forever accepted by
the workers and oppressed peoples of the world.
They may think that their armies can help them maintain
control of a world capitalist system that the imperialists of
the late 19th century could only imagine. They may believe they
can wage endless war and workers everywhere will accept it.
But if they look outside the Waldorf-Astoria, they will see
that their world is crumbling. From Allentown to Zimbabwe,
working and oppressed people are growing wise to the
machinations of these World Economic Felons, who have stolen
the resources and land and made the lives of the people in
every corner of the world miserable.
A truly international working class now confronts the
imperialist ruling class.
Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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