captains of industry
Powerful corporate leaders
Captains of industry are powerful business leaders who have built or control major enterprises.
The phrase emerged in the nineteenth century for figures like Carnegie and Rockefeller—men who amassed enormous wealth while transforming entire sectors of the economy.
The term carries ambivalence: it can suggest admiration for entrepreneurial achievement or criticism of unchecked corporate power.
The captains of industry gathered at Davos to discuss global markets.
- capitalistPrivate ownership supporter
- tycoonDominant industrial leader
- magnateWealthy business leader
- steel magnateIndustrialist in metal production
- railroad baronPowerful train industry magnate
industrialist · mogul · John D. Rockefeller · Andrew Carnegie · empire · robber baron · financier · big business · leadership · enterprise · baron · laissez-faire · corporation · trust busting · philanthropist · Henry Ford · businessman · corner office
- eliteselites, plutocrats, oligarchs, aristocrats, blue bloods
- Gilded AgeGilded Age, robber baron, robber barons, Carnegie, Rockefeller
- tycoonsoil tycoon, tycoons, railroad tycoon, John Rockefeller, magnates
- Wealthyrich, wealthy, affluent, affluence, wealth
- corporate portraits
- CarlyleOliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Chelsea, hero worship
captains of industrylaborers
Workers doing physical tasks
workers · the working class · working class · wage earners · factory workers
captains of industryunderlings
Lower-ranked employees
subordinates · peons · nobodies · small fry · ordinary people
captains of industryrobber barons
Exploitative nineteenth-century capitalists
exploiters · plutocrats · profiteers · union leaders · social reformers
captain, industry, captains, captained, captaining, captaincy, captaincies