One of the classic traits of the Gilded Age was the pseudo-science of Social Darwinism.
It was used to justify institutional racism, but it's primary purpose was to rationalize the status of the ruling elite in economic terms.
It was discredited as a science a century ago, which is why I was surprised to see it being reused and recycled today.

Economists have identified a link between genetics and wealth inequality

There has always been evidence that certain genetic traits are associated with entrepreneurship and wealth. But it was never clear how much could be credited to nature (an entrepreneur gene) and how much to nurture (growing up in an environment that encourages entrepreneurship or having rich parents who pass down their wealth).

A new research paper by Daniel Barth, Nicholas Papageorge, and Kevin Thom, attempts to separate out nature and nurture by measuring the contribution of genetics to wealth. Specifically, they focus on a genetic measure that indicates an affinity for educational attainment.

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
- Karl Marx

The fact that economists, not geneticists, are examining genetics is a big tell that this is total bullsh*t. In fact, this article is embarrassingly offensive on several levels.
For starters, it invents a false connection between wealth and genetics. This is just one step removed from eugenics, which is what Herbert Spencer, an early believer in Social Darwinism, embraced.

Herbert Spencer in particular was an ardent individualist. He firmly believed that the functions of the state should be limited to protection, and that no restrictions should be placed on commerce, and no provision made for social welfare or education. This individualism was a clear consequence of his application of evolutionary biology to social relationships.
He also saw the poor as being biologically “unfit.” Public efforts to help them, be it through legislation, charity, and social reconstruction, were undesirable because it might allow them to mature and pass on their weakness. He suggested that the whole thrust of nature was to get rid of the inefficient in order to make room for the superior. The way he looked at it, if they weren’t fit enough to live, they would die — and it was probably for the better.

The connections between eugenics, free market capitalism, racism, authoritarian politics, and moral corruption are very tight. They all exist in an "me vs. them" world of thinking. There is no room for society and solidarity, much less being your "brothers keeper".

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."
- South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, 2010

The other "tell" from this pseudo-science study is the link it tries to create between genetics and "educational attainment". That stinks of meritocracy - the modern term for Social Darwinism.

The paradox of meritocracy builds on other research showing that those who think they are the most objective can actually exhibit the most bias in their evaluations. When people think they are objective and unbiased then they don’t monitor and scrutinize their own behavior. They just assume that they are right and that their assessments are accurate. Yet, studies repeatedly show that stereotypes of all kinds (gender, ethnicity, age, disability etc.) are filters through which we evaluate others, often in ways that advantage dominant groups and disadvantage lower-status groups.

This dynamic is precisely why meritocracy can exacerbate inequality—because being committed to meritocratic principles makes people think that they actually are making correct evaluations and behaving fairly. Organizations that emphasize meritocratic ideals serve to reinforce an employee’s belief that they are impartial, which creates the exact conditions under which implicit and explicit biases are unleashed.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
- economist John Kenneth Galbraith

The ruling elite have always gone out of their way to justify the indefensible, and there will always be bootlickers to help them rationalize the status quo.
During feudal days, it was because of "God". Today it is because of "science".
The top 0.01% earn roughly 200 times the median household income.

Are top earners 200 times as smart as the rest of the field? Doubtful. Do they have the capacity to work 200 times more hours in the week? Even more doubtful. Many forces out of their control, including sheer luck, are at play.

But say you’re in that top 0.01 percent—or even the top 50 percent. Would you want to admit happenstance as a benefactor? Wouldn’t you rather believe that you earned your wealth, that you truly deserve it? Wouldn’t you like to think that any resources you inherited are rightfully yours, as the descendant of fundamentally exceptional people? Of course you would. New research indicates that in order to justify your lifestyle, you might even adjust your ideas about the power of genes. The lower classes are not merely unfortunate, according to the upper classes; they are genetically inferior.

“Meritocracy contradicts the principle of equality … no less than any other oligarchy.”
- Hannah Arendt

USA Today had an unusually good news article (for them) recently, titled In the second Gilded Age, the mansions get bigger, and the homeless get closer.

Before dawn on Dec. 6 a wildfire raced out of a parched ravine in Bel Air, scorching 422 acres, destroying or damaging 18 homes and forcing the evacuation of about 700 others — including Robin Greenberg’s.

Even more shocking than the fire’s damage was its cause: a portable stove at a homeless encampment right there in Bel Air....
The homeless camp where the December wildfire started was only a mile from a new hilltop mansion twice the size of the White House that’s for sale for $500 million....
But the capital of America’s second Gilded Age is Los Angeles, where hilltop homes worth tens of millions of dollars look out over a city in which even the middle class struggles to afford shelter and the number of homeless increases daily.

A homeless encampment fire reaching the edge of $100 million mansions reminded me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned (yes, I know that it never happened. It's just a metaphor).

Our ruling elite have pillaged the commons for so many years that what makes us a functioning society is in a state of collapse.
But the ruling elite will never willingly acknowledge their need for a functioning society, nor their guilt in destroying it.

The right-wing conservatives always like to blame "mental illness" for mass shootings, instead of guns.
Assuming for a moment that guns aren't responsible for gun violence, why doesn't anyone ever ask those right-wing conservatives what they intend to do about rampant mental illness?
Those conservatives have no answer for that, nor will they ever, for a simple reason - their right-wing dogma is responsible for the gutting of our mental health care system. Rampant homelessness, and now mass shootings, is a direct result of their ideology. So to do something about the mental health crisis requires caring about the condition of people that they previously screwed.

The wealthy are rarely exposed to the consequences of their Social Darwinism philosophy, but it won't stay that way forever. Much like the Bel Air fire in the article above, some things in society can jump gates and get past private security guards.
The gutting of our public health care system is nearly complete. This will have consequences.
Already millions are skipping visits to the doctor because they can't afford health care.
Just two days ago a child in Idaho was diagnosed with the bubonic plague.
If you read any history book you will discover that pandemics are not deterred by economic class, political status, or fame. But by then it will be too late.