I've studied this and related issues for thirty years. If you want to see how robber barons actually operated, go back and see how they used the power of government over the economic field to do what they did. The original Raubritters of Europe gained economic power through special state dispensations allowing them exclusive exploitation of resources. The history of the Gilded Age is one of government subsidies, legal monopolies, grants, bought politicians, and the use of eminent domain in the service of private industry.

Once you give a government enough power over economic activity, the result isn't a "watchdog of the people" keeping an eye on private sector abuses. It's a government/industrial complex, working in harmony to enhance each other's power.

Do you really think the regulators are always on YOUR side?

The one solution is reducing the current immense levels of government power. Reducing, not eliminating. But nobody wants to do that as long as there's a chance their faction can get control of it.