In America, the latter half of the 19th Century was known as the Gilded Age for its pervasive official corruption which declined with the Progressive Era and was really put down by demographic patterns following WWII. Corruption isn’t completely gone, mind you, but it isn’t a foregone conclusion as it apparently once was.
Did any nations in Europe pass through a similar age in their history? There are European nations that seem to be in a gilded age right now, but I am mainly interested in learning about the ones that got over it and how they did so.
Just a nitpick, but it got nicknamed “The Gilded Age”, not because of its corruption, but because of the conspicuous consumption and extravagance of the rich.
I always thought the “Gilded” word referred to the big wealth disparities accompanied by overly flashy display of wealth by the rich folks. Sort of like Vanderbilt’s family throwing these huge parties and so forth.
If you look at post-Napoleonic France you will probably see comparable disparities as well as some flashiness, made all the worse by the fact that the poor over there were poorer than what they were in the relatively affluent America. That’s one of the reasons for the great political radicalization of the French workers that manifested itself in the Revolution of 1848.
My (tenuous, I don’t know that much about the time period) impression is that Europe still had a hereditary aristocracy during the 19th century that kept industrialists and financiers from dominating in the way they did in the US.
Denmark had a period during WW-I when a few people got extremely rich relative to the rest of the population, mostly because the rest of Europe was at war and would buy whatever crap you’d sell them. They were called Goulash Barons because they sold packed food to Germany. A few prominent of them were heavily invested in Russia and went bankrupt with the revolution, the rest went bankrupt during the 1920s, when the rest of the Europe had started its own industries again.
Well, I was mistaken in what I thought the Gilded Age referred to, but what I wanted to know was if there were European nations which went through a period of endemic corruption which receded. If so, what caused the decline in corruption?
To defend **sweeteviljesus’ **interpretation (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d use :)), the term “Gilded Age” comes from a Mark Twain novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. One of the major themes of the novel is official corruption, with the action centering around the protagonist pushing a land speculation scheme through Congress.
England had such an era which ended with the reduction of excise duties in the mid nineteenth century, although details momentarily escape me. All to do with smuggling, very big. Very common. Lower duties eliminated profits, stopped it.