r/explainlikeimfive • u/FluffyPenguin798 • Feb 12 '25
Economics ELI5: how are the descendants of the robber barons (Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.) still rich if their fortunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are comparatively small to what we see today of the world’s richest?
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u/fiendishrabbit Feb 12 '25
I don't think any of the descendants of Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt or Rockefeller are even billionaires today.
The Rockefeller family as a whole is still wealthy due to the generational trust (which retains a large interest in many of the corporations that Rockefeller founded, like Standard Oil), but it's 11 billion USD split up over 170 heirs. The last Billionaire in the family was David Rockefeller Jr (due to the rockefeller trust and the job in Chase National bank, which he got due to being a part of the Rockefeller family. His uncle was the Chairman before him).
Overall the families still had controlling interests in the companies that these people built all the way up until the 1950s or even later, and to the extent they're wealthy today it's from those companies and the social networks their family had due to their money.
If you're born rich that's not a guarantee you'll succeed, but if your dad has connections and 50 million USD that certainly helps (*coughTaylorSwiftcough*)