Populist resentment against speculators has always been a touchstone of politics in the United States. Especially in times of heightened inequality, regular folks tend to turn against those who get rich without seeming to produce much of anything.

In the Gilded Age — the period that brought us palaces in Newport, Rhode Island, and monopolies such as Standard Oil but also two of the worst economic depressions in the nation’s history — those without access to capital or financial markets watched as their country was transformed with expansive railroads, air pollution, and immigrants.