The current masters of industry are still trying to stay on top.
Among his more radical observations was that legislators tended to defer to those "masters" of industry, even when their aims would hurt the citizenry.
Ford and Edison and the other masters of industry made themselves rich and incidentally created the middle class, which in turn undergirded America's democratic institutions.
The conference – as you may have read in the papers, or heard about via the ramblings of a YouTube conspiracy crank – is an annual event that brings together around 150 world leaders and masters of industry from across Europe and North America.
Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman star in the new film "Paranoia," a thriller about corporate espionage, masters of industry, Oldman's Michael Caine impersonation and suspension of disbelief (Hemsworth's character says he was born and raised in Brooklyn).
It lasted into the 20th century, as the masters of industry grasped that their new mass-produced wares--from automobiles to kitchen appliances--needed no less than a mass market, and that required a prospering middle class.
To add to the fantasy, he is a billionaire, captain of industry, master of the universe, the epitome of everything young girls are taught to hunger for; his movements, his smell, the feel of his flesh, the way he dresses.
President James Garfield, an implacable foe of the banking cartels, expressed his opposition by saying, "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce..
Those masters of finance, industry, and politics can find their way beyond the profit and power nexus, but this is among the greatest challenges facing those who seek a just society.
Even Radiohead, the band that has best mastered the art of industry buzz, revealed a more grounded side with its Thursday listening party at Plush.
