Howard Zinn’s purpose for writing “Robber Barons and Rebels” was to show that the wealthy and elite had the power and didn’t care about other people’s lives. They had money and were able to buy and then sell products for more and didn’t care if the product hurt the individual who used it. They only cared about the money and themselves. The Robber Barons were the ones who set the precedent that people were not treated the same, whether it was their social class, the color of their skin, race or gender. Zinn wrote this to point out that even though the world was advancing, we were becoming more industrialized and were controlled by the wealthy on the backs of the laborers. The wealthy were the robber barons because in one example, the elites