I think the change is that today’s ultra-rich don’t act the same way the rich of the past did.

The “robber-barons” of the early 20th century were phenomenally rich and powerful, and they built schools, libraries, parks, and other public goods with a small fraction of their wealth because they understood that they had at least some tiny obligation to give back to the society that provided the conditions under which they could get so wealthy.

Today’s rich are actively preaching against the concept of empathy, and resisting any notion that they owe anyone anything. They are convinced that even a single dollar of their fortunes going to anything other than their own personal aggrandizement is a deeply offensive idea. And they are so willing to resist doing anything positive for the world that they spend enormous amounts of money to create propaganda networks to convince others that they don’t owe anyone a single cent of their fortunes. They buy ad campaigns to convince people that taxing them is bad, spending in some cases more money than the taxes would cost them… all because they firmly believe no one but themselves should see even the tiniest benefit from their money.

I firmly believe that after a certain amount of money there is no longer “joy” in having money and they all have to find something else to get their fix so to speak.

It just so happens that hurting people (or more accurately, having the power to make people hurt themselves and put themselves through humiliation to please you) is the only thing that they enjoy after they’ve won the money part of life.

Even small businesses do this, owner gets the car they’ve always wanted and then just decides to make everyone that works for them as miserable as possible, even if it costs them more money to do that, because the high from that is WAY better than the money they could otherwise make.