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The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#31

Post by abtinf »

curious_fella wrote: post #20
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…

> All businesses rise and fall over time. The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice. Interesting assertion, do you have any books/data to back that up?

The entire history of economics backs this up. The only instances of long-lasting monopolies are the result of government coercion. The instability of large, profitable businesses has both a solid theoretical foundation and an unending abundance of empirical data.

If you ever think you have found a single instance of monopoly lasting any significant length of time, look deeper - with absolute certainty there is a government gun backing it up.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#32

Post by gnaritas »

abtinf wrote: post #31
curious_fella wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All businesses rise and fall over time. The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice. Interesting assertion, do you have any books/data to back that up?

The entire history of economics backs this up. The only instances of long-lasting monopolies are the result of government coercion. The instability of large, profitable businesses has both a solid theoretical foundation and an unending abundance of empirical data. If you ever think you have found a single instance of monopoly lasting any significant length of time, look deeper - with absolute certainty there is a gov…

Irrelevant since it's a straw-man. It doesn't matter if monopolies self destruct over enough time, the point of regulation is to avoid them to begin with because they're not good for capitalism.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#33

Post by markdog12 »

dharmon wrote: post #2

If this short bio is interesting, you may enjoy the much more in-depth biography, _Titan_, by Ron Chernow. In addition to an incredibly thorough (and even-handed, IMO) treatment of Rockefeller, I found it an interesting perspective on the post-war period in the US.

Highly recommend. One of the best bios I've ever read. The man had an iron will.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#34

Post by curious_fella »

gnaritas wrote: post #32
abtinf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire history of economics backs this up. The only instances of long-lasting monopolies are the result of government coercion. The instability of large, profitable businesses has both a solid theoretical foundation and an unending abundance of empirical data. If you ever think you have found a single instance of monopoly lasting any significant length of time, look deeper - with absolute certainty there is a gov…

Irrelevant since it's a straw-man. It doesn't matter if monopolies self destruct over enough time, the point of regulation is to avoid them to begin with because they're not good for capitalism.

It does matter. Monopolies are not "good for capitalism" if they prevent honest competition from battling the monopoly for business. If, as argued above, monopolies naturally "self-destruct" in favor of newer, more ferocious competitors, then regulation isn't necessary.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#35

Post by WalterBright »

narag wrote: post #25
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s. I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it. As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroye…

Netscape was best until about version 3. It had some niceties that IE lacked, actually IE was not even acceptable. Netscape 4.7 was "not so nice" and IE 4 was faster so, although terribly unsafe, it dominated market for years. Oh, and by the time Netscape 4.7 and IE 4.01 were released, Microsoft had already destroyed Netscape's business.

I don't remember which Netscape I used, but I started with it. It was awful in the constant crashing. I tried IE, and it crashed too, but only about half as often. If Netscape crashed half as often as Netscape, I would have stuck with it.

If you produce an obviously inferior product, it's a bit unfair to blame the competition for your own failures.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#36

Post by WalterBright »

gnaritas wrote: post #27
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s. I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it. As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroye…

> IE was much more stable Until Microsoft stopped keeping up with everyone else. You're reinforcing his point, Microsoft would have put everyone else out of business had it not been for antitrust issues. Competition is vital even when it's sub-par because it won't always be .

> Microsoft would have put everyone else out of business

Nobody knows what might have happened. The point is, it didn't happen and never did. And today Microsoft finds it very difficult to compete in the phone, search, and cloud market, and none of that difficulty is due to the Justice Dept's actions.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#37

Post by neaanopri »

curious_fella wrote: post #20
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…

> All businesses rise and fall over time. The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice. Interesting assertion, do you have any books/data to back that up?

I think that one modern example is "The Innovator's Dilemma".

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#38

Post by gnaritas »

curious_fella wrote: post #34
gnaritas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant since it's a straw-man. It doesn't matter if monopolies self destruct over enough time, the point of regulation is to avoid them to begin with because they're not good for capitalism.

It does matter. Monopolies are not "good for capitalism" if they prevent honest competition from battling the monopoly for business. If, as argued above, monopolies naturally "self-destruct" in favor of newer, more ferocious competitors, then regulation isn't necessary.

> If, as argued above, monopolies naturally "self-destruct" in favor of newer, more ferocious competitors, then regulation isn't necessary.

Absolutely incorrect as it allows for the abusive monopoly to exist for an undetermined amount of time possibly preventing competition more than long enough to do harm. This argument is equivalent to saying all murders die eventually so there's no need to outlaw murder.

Just because something self destructs "eventually" is not sufficient reason to not regulate it and is certainly not a good argument against regulation.

edit replying to below:

> I'm curious what harm you accuse SO of. Keep in mind that SO dropped the price of kerosene by 70% and kept it down. reply

Why should I keep that in mind? Doing a good thing doesn't mean you didn't also do bad things so that's simply not a relevant fact in this discussion.

It is historical fact he used anti-competitive practices[1] to sabotage the competition, the harm caused was to those trying to compete with him and it's exactly the reason we now have anti-trust laws.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#cite_ref-31

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#39

Post by hammock »

narag wrote: post #25
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s. I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it. As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroye…

Netscape was best until about version 3. It had some niceties that IE lacked, actually IE was not even acceptable. Netscape 4.7 was "not so nice" and IE 4 was faster so, although terribly unsafe, it dominated market for years. Oh, and by the time Netscape 4.7 and IE 4.01 were released, Microsoft had already destroyed Netscape's business.

Netscape 4.0 was the peak as I remember. Came with a shiny new logo

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#40

Post by gnaritas »

WalterBright wrote: post #36
gnaritas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IE was much more stable Until Microsoft stopped keeping up with everyone else. You're reinforcing his point, Microsoft would have put everyone else out of business had it not been for antitrust issues. Competition is vital even when it's sub-par because it won't always be .

> Microsoft would have put everyone else out of business Nobody knows what might have happened. The point is, it didn't happen and never did. And today Microsoft finds it very difficult to compete in the phone, search, and cloud market, and none of that difficulty is due to the Justice Dept's actions.

> The point is, it didn't happen and never did.

Wrong, it did happen, to Netscape. Microsoft's bundling of IE for free destroyed Netscape as a viable business.

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