In the Gilded Age, the then powers of industry – Gould, Morgan, Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Vanderbilt – consolidated the means of the industrial economy into the hands of an oligarchy who controlled the actual wealth of the United States. The means at that time were steel, oil, railroads, transportation and banks. Wealth has nothing to do with being rich, it has everything to do with the power to bend the arc of history to one’s desired end point. For the first time in human history, non-royal entities, these Robber Barons, were able to consolidate and use wealth to affect the outcome of ordinary lives, not only in this country, but around the world, without ever having fired a shot or burned a village. To provide justification and prevent a natural backlash from those who were conquered, and this was indeed a conquering, they utilized an ancient method of control: mythology. They created the mythology of the self-made man, the Walter Mitty, the rise-from-the-gutter-into-the-penthouse kind of person, who through their own pluck and persistence, hard work and sacrifice, were able to pull themselves by their bootstraps into a position of dominance over their own meager environment. It was one of Aristotle’s classic dramatic constructs from ancient times: man against the world, now writ large and in real time, but this time married with the freedoms granted by this new country, only 100+ years old, that insisted that all men were created equal.

To assuage the victims of their economic dominance, to keep them in voluntary compliance, and to ease their own consciences (because no matter their province, they were still men of their times), they created philanthropic institutions dedicated to the virtues of this mythology: educated mind, healthy body, uplifted soul. They established trusts and charities, erected grand cultural temples, endowed their names on educational and athletic structures to give the people new gods to worship: knowledge, culture, chastity and fidelity all in the pursuit of one thing: wealth. In doing so, they enlisted the energies of the conquered to maintain their position of wealth, because the underlying message of the myth was: you can do this too. If you follow in my footsteps, you can get here, you will have arrived. If you sacrifice, save, stay sober, be industrious you too can get to the top.

The entirety of the 20th century is based on these ideals, where the arc of human history is either an acceptance of these principals (Wall Street, enterprise, diligent capitalism) or a rejection of them (Marxism, communism, despotism, socialism).

But in the 21st century we find ourselves faced with a sadder truth: that this mythology was indeed a lie, that the system was rigged from the very beginning. We found there is no real equality, we are just playing out a 1000 year old class system that was written anew in the mountains and prairies of a new world. When we add the negative values of racial, ethnic and gender discrimination, values that are not uniquely American but are magnified through the prism of wealth, we find the system is rigged to promote inequality, to make sure that the vast majority of the people stay in voluntary servitude, bound to their rocks like Prometheus, baring open their chests so that the wealthy can rip out their hearts again and again.

There was one chance to change things, one opportunity to balance out an imbalance. It was a game changer like the world had never seen, a huge wave of egalitarian opportunity that was initially open to everyone who could find the keys to its access, in spite of their station, regardless of their country of birth. It was called the internet and in its short life, it created ripples from a small pool that had the power to capsize ocean liners across the globe. It was the equalizer that the ancient and modern world had never seen before, because even those who didn’t access it directly were indirectly affected by its use in ways they were unaware of. It moved through our lives in the way the slippery bonds of spider’s web eases itself into its host environment. It was ubiquitous, unusually so. Its price of access was small in comparison to the benefits that could be gained from it. Its power was in its virtual unfathomable depth, an endless world where new discoveries were made, where the promise of more was inherent in its use.

And even though we infantilized it, even though it grew so fast and we embraced it so quickly that we easily took it for granted; even though we mis-used it and abused it, it was the one gift, the one key to lay power bare and truly make the world flat, to even out centuries of wealth dominance.

But we lost it. And even worse, we didn’t know and most of us didn’t care.

That’s what the end of Net Neutrality means. Now, instead of names like Rockefeller and Ford and Carnegie, which in spite of their excesses and human failings, were at least human; we have the faceless, ever-hungry maws of AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and a few other Oligarchs of the New Age, buffeted by their stock price and over-stuffed executive boards made of the wealthy few. With 75 years of wealth-generation, starting from the end of WWII, the tiny faces behind these global entities will now dictate, through supply-side economics, our ability to navigate through the world of the future. The toll roads of the New Jersey Turnpike have been moved into our living rooms and in our pockets and handbags, patrolled by an unseen paramilitary force that will prevent access or determine your route through economic means.

And we don’t care.