Today Jake continued his powerpoint from yesterday.
Social Darwinism and Business
- Started when Charles Darwin's came up with biological evolution.
- Explained process of "natural selection"
- Strong survive, weak die out. **(survival of the fittest)**
- Economists found Social Darwinism a way to justify laissez-faire
- According to this, the marketplace should not be regulated by the government
- Riches were a sign of God's favor, and the poor must be lazy people
- Most entrepreneurs did everything they could to control the competition that threatened the growth of their business empires
- "If you can't beat them, join them": pursued horizontal integration in the form of merger
- A firm that bought out all its competitors could achieve a monopoly
- Set up a holding company is a way to set up a monopoly
- Standard Oil Company, created by John D Rockefeller, joined with competing companies in trust agreements
- Most entrepreneurs did everything they could to control the competition that threatened the growth of their business empires
- A firm that bought out all its competitors could achieve a monopoly, or complete control over its industry's production
Then Scott presented his part of the section:
Rockefeller and the "Robber" Barons
- In 1870 Rockefeller's company produced 2-3% of the crude oil in the world
- Critics called him a robber because he had good marketing tactics
- Drove many people out of business
- Was the richest person in the world
- Owned Standard Oil Company
- All about making as much money as he could for himself
- He kept most of his assets, but donated $500 million to the University of Chicago
- Sherman Antitrust Act: if you try to eliminate businesses unfairly, you can be broken up by this act. "anti-monoply". Also broke up Microsoft in 2000.
- The South was still trying to fix from the Civil War and people didn't want to invest in risky situations
- Northern businesses were very profitible
- South: mining/furniture/textile industries
- Factories: children as young as 15 worked 14-hour days, women worked in factories, was not clean, no sick/vacation days, treated very poorly
- Northern wages were higher than Southern wages
- Labor Union: workers went on strike, leader would talk to management and try to get fair working conditions/better hours/better wages
- American Federation of Labor
- Industrial Workers of the World
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