I think it's a mistake to combine progress in human rights and economic rights. While people worked towards greater civil rights, corporations worked to enhance their own power at everyone else's expense. They just happened at the same time.

To a large degree, the entire US has become that town in the old Western where the rich were above the law.

It strikes me as especially ironic now that people horde firearms against the day when their democratic rights are taken away. They're already gone.