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Why Is John D Rockefeller A Captain Of Industry

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Robbers of Industry: Exploring Rockefeller's Case of This False Binary Looking at Google Search trend data shows that the person most associated with the term ‘robber baron’ is business tycoon John D. Rockefeller. Interestingly enough, however, is that the same is true for the term ‘captain of industry’ (Google Trends). To this day, the legacy of Gilded age business leaders like Rockefeller is conflicted, with people struggling to decide whether they were captains of industry, a robber barons, or both. Rockefeller's case, however, is most conflicting given the enormous impacts he had, both good and bad, by improving quality of life but decreasing competition in the industry. Rockefeller's Standard Oil was formed during a time of need. America was industrializing fast, railroads were expanding, and need for oil was at an …show more content…

During the times, Ida Tarbell, muckraker and advocate, dedicated her entire life to exposing these methods in the case of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. What she concluded was that “John D. Rockefeller and his associates … fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting” (Tarbell). Some of these may seem beneficial, such as rebates and price cutting, but their reality is much worse. Rebates were only available to Standard Oil, not to any smaller businesses, discouraging entrepreneurship, innovation, and overall advancement in the oil industry. In addition, the use of this saved money to cut prices only increased Standard Oil’s profits and reach, making them exponentially more powerful, and making the market that much less competitive. The purposeful and forceful creation of a monopoly by John D. Rockefeller essentially eliminated the idea of a meritocracy in the oil industry. Standard Oil success was due to its size and resources, destroying small and potentially better

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1.The robber barons were Andrew Carnegie JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. These individuals were known as robber barons because they were eliminating competition by high pricing and overcharging while managing their monopoly. 2. Trunk lines were four major railroad networks that emerged after the civil war which connected eastern sea ports to western rivers as well as great lakes. The federal government loaned $65 million to western railroads and donated millions of acres.

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One of the greatest threats to the country was the establishment of monopolies in certain industries, and industrialists like John Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, worked with the specific goal in mind to create a monopoly. For example, with Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller colluded with the railroad industry to have them raise the price of rail shipping for his competitors and in turn give the extra money the railroad companies made to Rockefeller and his company. Therefore, Rockefeller monopolized his industry by having railroads hike their prices for his competitors' shipping which thus increased the price of oil, and at the same time, Rockefeller was able to lower his price with the rail revenue he received, therefore putting all of his competitors out of business and establishing a monopoly. Once a monopoly is established, the company can set the price and has no need to innovate with the absence of competitors, thus harming the country as a whole. While corruption occurred between industrialists, there were also acts of corruption between industrialists and the government itself.

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This investigation will scrutinize the question: To what extent did antitrust laws affect John D. Rockefeller’s company- Standard Oil? To analyze the effectiveness of the antitrust laws, the investigation will focus on the government policies and execution of said policies during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era (1870-1920). The first source is a cartoon drawn by Horace Taylor for the September 25, 1899 issue of The Verdict named “What a Funny Little Government”. By 1890, Standard Oil dominated 90 percent of the oil industry, thus the publication date strengthens the value of the cartoon itself, since the close proximity enables for the cartoon to capture the perception of the cartoonist as well as the general public.

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With Standard Oil being the leading oil company, this limits other oil companies to sales because Standard Oil had the rights to many companies to produce and sell oil leaving very few businesses that other oil companies could sell to. This puts the little companies into a decrease in sales while Standard Oil makes a huge increase in sales. Small businesses worry about becoming bankrupt while Rockefeller becomes wealthy. Rockefeller was the reason why there were limits to big businesses because he was in control with oil companies not allowing others to succeed as

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Not long after his first company took off, in 1870, he created Standard Oil Co., which was a combination of a few of the other businesses he had started. Rockefeller used refineries to extract oil, rather than some of his competitors who preferred to use oil rigs. What truly helped Rockefeller rise above his competitors was actually undercutting their prices, and even offering money to railroad companies to only ship materials to him, which caused his competitors’ businesses to go bankrupt. He used a business tactic called the trust, where he took shares in other companies, offering the owners a place on the board of directors and dividends in the company. This tactic gave Rockefeller more control over his competitors’ businesses, which affected everyone else negatively.

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Rockefeller established an oil refinery near Cleveland. Within the first two years it was the largest in the area. Eventually, after many successes in the industry, Rockefeller turned his full attention to the oil business. In 1870, Rockefeller and his partners started the Standard Oil company. This business immediately began making money, partly because of the favorable economic conditions and partly because of Rockefeller’s drive to streamline the company’s operations and keep margins high.

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During the Progressive Era in America there was a group of journalist called muckrakers that expose the corrupt industries such as Standard Oil. One muckraker, named Ida Tarbell, targeted Rockefeller and his company. She was the author of the book“The History of Standard Oil”, which brought to light the corrupt ways of business. The president that was appointed to office after the death of Mckinley was Theodore Roosevelt, who found the book written by Ida Tarbell quite interesting. Theodor put Standard Oil under heavy investigations and took Rockefeller to trail.

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Another man that had a tremendous effect on the american economy and structure was John D Rockefeller pioneer of horizontal integration and owner of petroleum refining giant Standard Oil he was called a robber baron because many people believed he used unethical business practices to amass his extraordinary wealth. even so Rockefeller was generally kind to his workers “Paying higher than market wages he believed it helped slash costs in the long

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Railroad managers invented modern systems for running large scale business operations, making a model that other large corporations shadowed. The railroads created job paths that took 18 year old boys and revolved them into brakemen, engineers and conductors. John D. Rockefeller, with the railroads in the palms of his hands, was able to could supply every home in the United States with “Standard Oil” kerosene. With all of his earnings, Rockefeller bought out his competition to own most of the oil refineries in the United States. Over time, Rockefeller eventually controlled a 90% of the North American oil supply.

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Lastly, the government should break up Standard Oil’s Monopoly because it is an illegal business. In the year of 1892 it was considered an illegal monopoly and was ordered for dissolution. It was illegal because he used secret rebates or payments to threaten the companies he considered competitors. He drove various business out of the market and forced them to shut down no matter what. We notice this when Rockefeller states, “I ascribe the success of the Standard Oil Company to its consistent policy of making the volume of its business large through the merit and cheapness of its

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1406 Words | 6 Pages

Although the majority of capitalists considered captains of industry have given back to the greater good in some way or another through philanthropic acts such as the increase in productivity, expansion of markets, and/or provision of more jobs, in turn he/she can also be recognized as robber barons due to his/her utilization of unjustifiable and greed-driven tactics to gain an edge over, and eventually eradicate, his/her competition. The characterization of the majority of industrialists as robber barons is not justifiable due to the fact that a number of these leaders were also very philanthropic and can be described as both a captain of industry and/or a robber baron. John D. Rockefeller, an American business magnate and philanthropist, was the co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry in the late nineteenth century. Rockefeller utilized unjustifiable tactics such as rebates, drawbacks, and horizontal integration to grow his business and overwhelm his competitors and could thus easily lower commercial prices because of the unfair advantage that he had gained.

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173 Words | 1 Pages

Also for the longest time Rockefeller had a monopoly over oil. Rockefeller produced oil, called Standard il. Since nobody else could figure it out they had to only buy from him. So he could make oil as expensive as he wanted. The il he prduced made light everyone needs light, so pf course he got a ton of business.

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John D. Rockefeller Sr: How did John D. Rockefeller impact the Industrial Revolution John Davison Rockefeller Sr. once stated “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success” (John D. Rockefeller Quotes). John D. Rockefeller was the founder of Standard Oil in which then became one of the wealthiest men in the world. Rockefellers ongoing funding as a philanthropist and trust in oil is how the man's name still lives on to this day (The Rockefeller Archive Center). For thousands of years oil has been a main resource for human consumption, and remains the same.

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Rockefeller was the first man to manufacture oil and founded Standard Oil Company. With the development of oil which is an essential resource, came great responsibility and dominance. However,

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John D. Rockefeller gave away $540 million dollars before his death at the age of 97. With this money he created two, of the world's greatest research companies and helped pull the American South out of poverty. Without Rockefeller’s gracious donations to our country through education, medical, and donations to help our country, he most definitely was a Captain of Industry which helped our country get to where we are today. Captain of Industry is a fancy term of saying that this person has helped our country thrive and get to where we are today. John D. Rockefeller is a prime example of a great leader and a captain of industry, without him we would not have the successful oil business we have today.

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