Andrew Carnegie A Monopoly Essay

As it could be seen, the creation of the railroad system and discovery of many revolutionary inventions gave America the opportunity to expand its industry, grow wealthier, and become the most industrialized country in the world. Not only did this result in the spread of corruption and government regulation over the railroad industry, but it led to the growth of big businesses in other industries, the concept of monopoly, and the theory of social Darwinism was formed, in which all three ultimately redefined what it meant to be a successful business leader. One of the first big businesses to arise would have to be the Carnegie Steel Company, which was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1899. Carnegie was born in Scotland, but moved to America when

Following this, he would then buy out his competitors and gain control over their production lines. This allowed Carnegie to become one of the top producers of steel in the nation. Following his example was John Rockefeller who founded the Standard Oil Company. However, instead of dominating his competitors, he joined up with them utilizing trust agreements. This was the first time a corporation ran by more than one person was created, allowing a monopoly to form over the Oil industry. It even got to the point where Rockefeller tried to maximize profits by inflating oil prices, since he was the only Oil Company available. Both Carnegie and Rockefeller were utilizing new business strategies that no one had seen before, which ended up being known as Social Darwinism. It was based off Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that he wrote about in his famous work, On the Origin of Species. It basically stated that organism who were stronger and better adapted would get rid of weaker ones, allowing them dominate the gene pool. This was just applied to businesses ridding of each other, allowing the strongest business to rule the

Many were noticing that many business leaders were working together or dominating each other to form big businesses, and this motivated workers to come together and fight for better working conditions. This started the movement of several labor unions to start forming throughout the country. At first they started out very peaceful, negotiating with managers to come up with a compromise between them and the workers. The most successful of the labor unions would have to be the American Federation of Labor, which was founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886. Gompers believed the best way to unite workers was under the idea of craft unionism, which allowed him to form and become the leader of the American Federation of Labor. It was also very unique as it was the first to utilize strikes, or refusal to work, to negotiate agreements with. It was highly successful if one sees the states, weekly wages increased by $7, and the amount of hours to work dropped to about 49. This organization would also influence the formation of many more labor unions, even though they would not be as