Historical Echoes: We Are the 99 Percent, 1765 Edition

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http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2012/04/historical-echoes-we-are-the-99-percent-1765-edition.html

Kara Masciangelo and Jamie McAndrews

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In the early 1760s, an economic downturn caused a great deal of hardship for most of the residents of New York, including many merchants, recent immigrants, and debtors (many of whom wound up in jail). In the midst of this downturn, the wealthiest merchants, officials, and naval officers did not seem to suffer. One particularly obvious show of distinction and wealth was possession of a carriage. The city's 85 carriages were owned by only 62 people in New York, whose population was approximately 18,000 in 1760. The modern equivalent (although not as visible, perhaps) might be traveling by private jet rather than by commercial airlines.

Disapproval of the extreme wealth of the few during an economic downturn was made clear in a 1765 letter to the editor of the New–York Gazette. The letter is primarily about the worsening relations with the "Mother Country," England. However, the writer also expresses dissatisfaction with affairs in New York in a fashion that presages the “We are the 99 percent” theme of Occupy Wall Street:

Some Individuals of our Countrymen, by the Smiles of Providence or some other Means, are enabled to roll in their four–wheel'd Carriages, and can support the Expence of good Houses, rich Furniture, and Luxurious Living. But, is it equitable that 99, or rather 999 should suffer for the Extravagance or Grandeur of one? Especially when it is consider’d, that Men frequently owe their Wealth to the Impoverishment of their Neighbours.

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