Robber baron (industrialist)
Term used for American Gilded Age businessmen accused of using unscrupulous methods to get rich / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Robber baron is a term first applied as social criticism by 19th century muckrakers and others to certain wealthy, powerful, and unethical 19th-century American businessmen. The term appeared in that use as early as the August 1870 issue of The Atlantic Monthly[1] magazine. By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used exploitative practices to amass their wealth.[2] Those practices included unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors to create monopolies and/or trusts that control the market, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors.[2] The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (“baron”) in a republic.[3]