Monday- finished Chapter 5 and 6 presentations
Notes on 6.3
- Andrew Carnegie :
- Sorted out a railroad trailer
- Thomas A. Scott gave him a chance to buy stock
- American success story because of rags to riches
- 1873- entered the steel business with his own company
- 1899- Carnegie steel company manufactured more steel than all of Great Britain
- Wanted to increase business
- Hired specially talented employees
- Vertical and horizontal integration
- Horizontal integration: companies would buy out other companies of the same industry to expand
- Business wants to control everything and they buy out smaller businesses of the same product
- Vertical integration: business was really booming and had so much power that they could collect resources, manufacture the goods, and distribute the goods all on their own (they didn't need to work with anyone else)
- One business buys out railroad companies, factories,and stores so they are in control of the entire process
- Trusts: when the smaller cooperation wants to join the bigger cooperation (if you can't beat them , join them), a trust is a bunch of companies joining under one name
- Monopoly: when one person or business controls the entire industry of a specific product
- John D. Rockefeller:
- Established the Standard Oil Company
- Used "trusts" to gain control of the oil company
- Within 10 years, it covered 90% of America
- Very low pay to workers
- Gave away 500 million, established the Rockefeller Foundation
- Labor Union:
- Group of individuals that come together and fight for their rights and better conditions
- Farmers formed labor union
- 1866- William H. Syllabus started the first national labor union
- Legalize an 8 hour day
- Labor unions weren't successful at first (they went on strike but then they would lose because everyone was against them)
- People who went on strike could be easily replaced by immigrants
- Ultimately, labor unions became successful (you would start to see small gains- 14 hours to 12 hours to 10 hours to 8 hours)
- Sherman Antitrust Act:
- Wanted to stop trusts from happening so one business didn't explode into a huge monopoly
- Sherman Antitrust Act eventually failed
- Helped break up Standard Oil, AT&T, and Microsoft
- Competition is good because if you don't like one company, you can go to a different one. Prices will also stay more regulated
- Darwinism:
- Survival of the fittest
- Stronger, smarter, better adapted species would live and less smart would die out
- Social Darwinism:
- Charles Darwin wrote a book that said there is a process of natural selection which weeded out the less suited and enabled the stronger
- Social Darwinism takes that into business, where the bigger, stronger businesses will survive
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