No two places are exactly the same. No two countries share all the same laws, and regulations. As such, they all have different economies. The free market system in the United States is an economy which encourages growth and development through competition of businesses; However, in some cases, businesses compete so well that they are able to seize control of certain economic areas. John D. Rockefeller was one such business leader who was able to do so. The free market system allowed him to start off as an office clerk, and brick by brick build his oil empire, Standard Oil, and snuff out virtually all of his competition. His dream was to one day refine all of the world's oil. Other men, such as Andrew Carnegie, were able to create monopolies …show more content…
At the time, the US Congress made it very difficult to operate businesses out-of-state. Eventually, though, Rockefeller and his lawyers devised a "trust" which would allow them to legally operate many businesses in any state and still return the profits. With it's horizontal integration, it could cut it's prices, reduce the price of it's materials, and control the costs of it's shipping. It quickly spread from state to state; and with the success of it's "trusts", other largely successful businesses turned their attention to them and started making their own trusts, taking full advantage of …show more content…
Although, this wasn't the immediate end of Standard Oil. In fact, it continued on for many years after that. It seemed the business was an un-sinkable ship. It reached it's peak when it controlled about 90% of the world's oil refinement, soon after heading down to 80%. Rockefeller gave up his dream of refining all the world's oil, saying: "We realized that public sentiment would be against us if we actually refined all the oil." He instead expanded his business into other areas, opening up coal and ore refineries in Europe and Asia. Even expanding into the Iron ore and ore transportation business; where he collided with Andrew Carnegie, which was a very major topic media and