Chapter 14 Section 3 Critical Thinking

Do you think that the tycoons of the late 19th century are best described as ruthless robber barons or as effective captains of industry?
-management tactics and business strategies
-contributions to the economy
-attitude toward competition

I think that the tycoons were better described as ruthless. Their cutthroat tactics and strategies for making more money were cruel to their workers and deceptive to their buyers. For example, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller started off processing 2 to 3% of the country's crude oil, and within a decade, he controlled 90%. When he had monopolized the market, he raised his prices to be much higher than what they were. He also got large amounts of money because of how little her paid his workers; whole families would have to work in the factories in order to support themselves. I addition, the factories were poorly kept and dangerous, but if an employee was injured, they would not be given compensation. Work hours were long and there were no vacations; it was often a 7 day work week. While the average man made $498 and the average woman $267 in 1899, Andrew Carnegie made $23 million with no income tax.
The attitude of tycoons towards the competition was either to try to buy them out or run them out of business. In horizontal integration, companies would buy their competition and they would merge as one company. Alternatively, there was vertical integration, in which the companies would buy out their suppliers and thus be in charge of transportation and raw materials, which would make it much harder for their competition to get supplies. The policy seems to have been a "join or die" type of thing.