During my vacation visiting the "summer cottages" built in Newport's Gilded Age got me thinking. These multi-million dollar mansions were built in a time when there were no such things as income tax or labour laws, when most corporations shouldered responsibility and recognized the importance of suporting the communities that provided the workforce for them. Some (probably most) corporations didn't, so the government (being an instrument of popular intention) came along, made that responsibility mandatory thru income tax and imposed themselves as middlemen.
That, plus labour laws and anti-trust laws, supposedly make such incomprehensible personal fortunes impossible today, according to the tour guides. Obviously they aren't aware of Microsoft or Exxon...
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