The Roots of America's Wealth Gap

The entire modern economy is based on a cheat code discovered by a few ruthless tycoons

in the late 1800s. Guys like Rockefeller and Carnegie figured out that if you own every single

step of the process, from the raw materials to the delivery trains, you can destroy

your competition and become a billionaire. They called it vertical integration, but it was basically

a monopoly. While they built empires, workers faced deadly conditions and child

labor was completely normal. This era didn't just build America’s factories; it invented

the massive wealth gap we are still trying to fix today.