During the First Gilded Age in America, which followed the Civil War, the rich were very wealthy and powerful. Resistance to this gap between the rich and the poor erupted in 1874 when unemployed women and their children marched on New York's City Hall demanding "Bread or Blood." Elsewhere in the nation, other have-nots tried to assert themselves against the rich. But whereas the inequalities in society troubled many, a class war was nipped in the bud.

Steve Fraser starts his book with an exploration of the trouble spots in the First Gilded Age where at least there was some opposition to the evolving plutocracy. Fraser then paints a picture of the second Gilded Age signified by Occupy Wall Street. Only this time Americans refused to rebel; instead they surrendered to bankers and the corporations.

Fraser thinks today's economic inequality is here to stay given the death of labor unions, the melding of the left and the right on arms sales, wars abroad, and lawmakers enslavement to political action groups in exchange for campaign financing. Meanwhile, consumerism and the mass media offer escape from the harsh realities of unemployment and homelessness.

The Age of Acquiesence presents a chilling portrait of the economic inequality which has always played a prominent role in American democracy. The deck remains stacked in favor of the rich and the powerful, and it appears that little can be done to turn things around as we face even larger crisis of climate control.