The general decline in standards today

[jamespowers]

It can, and has, been argued that the business would have opened up anyway. After Spindletop in 1901, and certainly by the boom in demand created by the widespread use of automobiles, it was getting harder and harder for Rockefeller to maintain the control he had. The industry was outgrowing him, if you can imagine that. Still, he was a sour and ruthless ba***rd, who made many enemies, so they weren't going to wait around to see what happened.

That would be my response as well. Monopolies tend to fall under their own weight because they eventually become less efficient due to their large size and inability to cope with communication within such a large structure. It can easily be done today but not so much back then with little technology for that purpose. Just imagine the bookkeeping required for that leviathan.:doh:



A motley collection of right-wing nutjobs and bigamists...the opposite of hippies...perhaps Mr. Powers would embraces such a scenario....[/QUOTE]

Just about anything that is the opposite of Hippie is good enough for me. However, bigamy falls under hippie so there really isn’t a huge difference between the two in that regard. :doh:

 

[Stanley Doble]

Rockefeller tried to monopolize the oil industry and failed. He had the Pennsylvania and Indiana oil fields sewn up but as soon as they found oil in Texas and Oklahoma, there was too much oil for even Rockefeller to buy up.

His first effort was to organize the Pennsylvania oil fields into an organization called the South Improvement Company but the other oil producers would not go along with him. This led to the remark, "I offered them cooperation and they didn't want it. So I gave them competition and they didn't like that either".

As far as Rockefeller being a sour and ruthless ba***rd, you ought to have seen the other guys. The oil business was notorious for its crooks, swindlers, and plug uglies. In that crowd Rockefeller was practically a saint. This was one reason he was so successful.

 

[HudsonHawk]

As far as Rockefeller being a sour and ruthless ba***rd, you ought to have seen the other guys. The oil business was notorious for its crooks, swindlers, and plug uglies. In that crowd Rockefeller was practically a saint. This was one reason he was so successful.

Rockefeller was successful because he would stop at nothing to get his way, including hiring goons and thugs to intimidate, sometimes violently, his competition.

 

[jamespowers]

Rockefeller tried to monopolize the oil industry and failed. He had the Pennsylvania and Indiana oil fields sewn up but as soon as they found oil in Texas and Oklahoma, there was too much oil for even Rockefeller to buy up.

His first effort was to organize the Pennsylvania oil fields into an organization called the South Improvement Company but the other oil producers would not go along with him. This led to the remark, "I offered them cooperation and they didn't want it. So I gave them competition and they didn't like that either".

As far as Rockefeller being a sour and ruthless ba***rd, you ought to have seen the other guys. The oil business was notorious for its crooks, swindlers, and plug uglies. In that crowd Rockefeller was practically a saint. This was one reason he was so successful.

Yes, there were far worse than Rockefeller. He at least had some sense of morals. Others in that industry were just plain amoral. H.L. Hunt was worse---for example……

 

[jamespowers]

Rockefeller was successful because he would stop at nothing to get his way, including hiring goons and thugs to intimidate, sometimes violently, his competition.

And others didn't? lol lol

 

[HudsonHawk]

And others didn't? lol lol

Sure they did. That doesn't excuse Rockefeller though.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Yes, there were far worse than Rockefeller. He at least had some sense of morals. Others in that industry were just plain amoral. H.L. Hunt was worse---for example……

As for "morals", Rockefeller simply had a god complex. He rationalized his dirty dealings with the steadfast belief that God ordained him to be the one seller of oil.

 

[jamespowers]

Sure they did. That doesn't excuse Rockefeller though.

No but it frames a historical context. You made it sound like he came up with the idea. lol lol

 

[jamespowers]

As for "morals", Rockefeller simply had a god complex. He rationalized his dirty dealings with the steadfast belief that God ordained him to be the one seller of oil.

Like he was the only one to think that since Manifest Destiny.

 

[HudsonHawk]

No but it frames a historical context. You made it sound like he came up with the idea. lol lol

He didn't invent racketeering, he was just really good at it.

 

[jamespowers]

He didn't invent racketeering, he was just really good at it.

lol lol Now at least you are getting closer to the truth.

 

[jamespowers]

lol lol Now at least you are getting closer to the truth.

Oh and RICO didn't exist until long after his death. So technically he was completely innocent of any such thing.

 

[rjb1]

Speaking of industrial hoods, thugs, and intimidation, it's an interesting historical fact that among the first purchasers of the Thompson submachine gun back in 1921 were steel companies, coal mines, and other such corporations.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And speaking further of hoods and thugs in a business context, there's the interesting story of one Moses "Moe" Annenberg, who had been a muscle boy for the Hearst newspaper distribution interests in Chicago in the teens -- his job was to bust up newsstands and disrupt deliveries of rival sheets, and he did so with relish, brass knuckles, tire irons, and blackjacks.

Moe broke enough jaws and scattered enough teeth in the gutters of Chicago to become a favored fellow around the Hearst operation, and with Hearst's backing he became a very successful man in the 1920's as the proprietor of the Daily Racing Form. In the thirties he founded Radio Guide magazine -- a publication which would evolve, eventually, into TV Guide and make his son, Walter Annenberg exceedingly, exceedingly rich. Young Walter, the son of a cheap hood who went up the river in 1940 on a gigantic tax evasion rap, went on to become a confidante of presidents, a crony of the show business elite, an endower of respectable universities, and the Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

Only in America.

 

[hatguy1]

That would be my response as well. Monopolies tend to fall under their own weight because they eventually become less efficient due to their large size and inability to cope with communication within such a large structure. It can easily be done today but not so much back then with little technology for that purpose. Just imagine the bookkeeping required for that leviathan.:doh:



A motley collection of right-wing nutjobs and bigamists...the opposite of hippies...perhaps Mr. Powers would embraces such a scenario....

Just about anything that is the opposite of Hippie is good enough for me. However, bigamy falls under hippie so there really isn’t a huge difference between the two in that regard. :doh:
[/QUOTE]

Getting a little off-topic here, aren't we?


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[LizzieMaine]

Well, I think it all comes down to an interesting point -- one thing that seems to be constant thruout the past hundred and fifty years is that to make it to the top of the business world you have to be an individual of no moral scruples whatever. Obscuring your sins thru philanthropy is an old, old stunt -- but we don't seem to be as skeptical about it nowadays as we used to be.

 

[vitanola]

Well, I think it all comes down to an interesting point -- one thing that seems to be constant thruout the past hundred and fifty years is that to make it to the top of the business world you have to be an individual of no moral scruples whatever. Obscuring your sins thru philanthropy is an old, old stunt -- but we don't seem to be as skeptical about it nowadays as we used to be.

In addition, the sort of philanthropy has changed. Where in the past a Rockefeller might eradicate hookworm in the South (which was a great humanitarian program, though it also was understood to be good business) today one might fund a think-tank (which, whilst it might also be good for business does not posess the humanitarian aspects of the former.)

 

[hatguy1]

Well, I think it all comes down to an interesting point -- one thing that seems to be constant thruout the past hundred and fifty years is that to make it to the top of the business world you have to be an individual of no moral scruples whatever. Obscuring your sins thru philanthropy is an old, old stunt -- but we don't seem to be as skeptical about it nowadays as we used to be.

Where would Bill Gates or
Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs fall in that spectrum of "moral scruples?"


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[LizzieMaine]

Where would Bill Gates or
Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs fall in that spectrum of "moral scruples?"

Ask a Chinese laborer. It's easy to talk about morality, but it only goes so far as the bottom line.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In addition, the sort of philanthropy has changed. Where in the past a Rockefeller might eradicate hookworm in the South (which was a great humanitarian program, though it also was understood to be good business) today one might fund a think-tank (which, whilst it might also be good for business does not posess the humanitarian aspects of the former.)

A "philanthropist" endowing a think-tank is the ultimate vanity project. They might as well build pyramids in their own honor for all the benefit such "endowments" offer humanity.

You want to help humanity? How about endowing good schools in the inner city and in small towns decimated by globalization. Up in Millinocket some lady who won the Powerball paid for a new high school -- and in doing so contributed more to the future of people who needed hope for the future than a million onanistic "think tanks."