There's a line in Allan Gurganus's "Plays Well With Others", set in the 1980s, that discusses how the barons of the 1880s funded libraries and museums, etc., while the wildly wealthy of the 1980s snorted most of their money up their rebuilt noses. I wonder how he'd write that line now, maybe yachts?

The juxtaposition is stark

high inheritance taxes meant the rich once had to donate their money or give half to uncle sam