There is no need to reduce imperialism to economics alone. But history shows that when inequality, profiteering, and extractivism are celebrated, expansion beyond national borders soon follows. The difference between the Gilded Age and Trump’s era is not one of kind, but of scale. In 1910, the richest 0.00001 percent of Americans owned wealth equivalent to 4 percent of U.S. national income. Today, that number has risen to 12 percent. The wealth and power of oligarchs far exceed their Gilded Age peak.