FOR MOST of its history, America has been a more egalitarian place than Europe—at least, so long as you exclude the abomination of slavery. White migrants to the New World found it less class-bound than the old. Inherited wealth cast a shorter shadow. In 1810, according to Thomas Piketty, a French economist, the richest 10% of Americans controlled less than 60% of national wealth, compared with more than 80% in Europe. When industrialisation threatened to establish an aristocracy like those across the Atlantic, the social backlash was prompt and decisive. Reforms extended the vote to women and protected workers' rights, busted powerful monopolies and introduced an income tax. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal finished the work begun in the late 19th century. By the 1950s, the American economy was not only the most advanced in the world, but was once more a bastion of egalitarianism.
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