"Robber Barons"-discussion in history class

Miscellaneous History
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So,today in my U.S. history class we discussed the “robber barons”.

It went basically like this:

After the Civil War, entrepreneurs like Rockefeller and Carnegie emerged, along with big corporations. Unfortunately, there was little to no regulation (or Congress was in the back pocket of these men), so the corporations would treat the workers badly and get a monopoly. Thankfully,labor unions emerged, and Congress banned trusts, thereby stopping anyone from getting a monopoly. However, today companies use “interlocking” to basically get a trust.

Companies got a monopoly by using predatory pricing-they would lower their price to drive out competition, and then raise it to hurt consumers and make more money.

Now the only stuff I’ve really read on this are the sections in How Capitalism Saved America and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

As far as I can tell, the basic austrian critique is this:

1.You must distinguish between market entrepreneurs,like Vanderbilt,Hill,or Rockefeller, and political entrepreneurs, like, well,I don’t know.

2.“Predatory pricing” is largely a myth. A company could indeed drive out competition by lowering prices, but when it started to raise prices, competition would reemerge.

3.By the time Standard Oil was broken up, it was losing market share.

4.Standard Oil was not broken up because of benevolent politicians, but because of jealous competitors.

5.Workers were not treated badly out of malevolence from the corporations,but because there was a lack of capital there were simply not enough resources,or something.

In addition to that, we talked about “income inequality” and how “median household income” (or something like that) has been going down for the bottom 20 % and up for the top 5 % since 1969. As far as I understand it, the fallacy in this kind of thinking is thinking that the same people are in the groups. A lot of people who were in the bottom 20 % in the 1970s were in the top 20 % by the 1990s.

Anything else? Tomorrow we’re discussing what it was like for workers, and on Wednesday we’re discussing labor unions.

2

Yeah that’s largely it. For more, see here:

Monopoly & Predatory pricing (aka “commodity hoarding”) (Antitrust; the Microsoft case)

“Wage slavery”

Exposing the meatpacking myth

https://wiki.freecapitalists.org/wiki/Standard_Oil

videos:

Thomas Sowell vs Statist: Interpreting the Wage Statistics

Thomas Sowell - Poverty & Dependence

Thomas Sowell - Is “Income Stagnation” an Economic Myth?

Statistics vs. Reality

Applying Economics to American History | Thomas E. Woods , Jr.

excerpt: Myth: The Government and Labor Unions Saved Us From Low Wages and Poverty

3

It sounds government intervention was the problem in the first place.

Hey, what do you know? Government intervention was also the solution, too.

4

Look up essentially anything by me on this forum with the word “Guilded Age” in it.

Here is a good list of stuff to read:

http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/histmon.php

5

I think you are good to go. Few comments:

On #1: The same person could be a market entrepreneur then turn into a political one as he tries to fend off competition.

On #2: Ask him to provide a SINGLE example for prices skyrocketing back up after an alledged “predatory pricer” has eliminated competition.

On #5: There is no “or something”. People worked harder in spaces without A/C simply because the level of productivity was lower than it is today.

On income inequality: Ask him how much income inequality is too much and according to what standard? Why is income equality good in and of itself and for whom?

Is this a classroom from the former USSR?

6

1.That’s a good point. I guess Rockefeller would be an example of that, considering he was involved in the making of the Fed.

It’s not from the former USSR, but it’s your average statist crap. It’s getting harder and harder to deal with. I swear I might go insane when we learn about the New Deal.

Also,John James,thanks for the links.

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If you’re looking for a good resource on the reality of the robber barons, get a copy of John T. Flynn’s Men of Wealth.

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9

rockefeller saved the whales :slight_smile:

10

Kelvin, there was some article that came out in the past year which disputed that.

Found it:

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/whale-oil-myth/24269

11

update:

today we discussed the workers, and how horrible it was for them.

also,my teacher decided to emphasize the typical social democratic views that:

*Rich people hate paying taxes because they don’t want poor people to have healthcare.

*Obama wants rich people to pay their “fair share” so that he can implement wonderful social programs!

*All rich people are Republicans, all middle/lower class people are Democrats.

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And someone is paying this guy to “teach”?

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It’s a woman,actually.

What can I say though,it’s public school in Seattle,WA, second only to San Francisco for being lefty la la land.

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It was pretty funny when the whole “republicans love the rich” thing happened,though:

Teacher: “And you see rich people back then did a lot of philanthophy, but it wasn’t out of good will for their fellow man. Does anyone know why they did it?”

Other student:“Isn’t it because they could pay like 30 % less income tax or something?”

Teacher:“Right, and because of that, in this era, the government didn’t have much money-”

Me,under my breath:“Fuck yeah!”

teacher looks at me while continuing

“-sort of like today, and you know Obama is trying to raise taxes on the rich so they can pay their fair share,and people can get healthcare but Republicans are protectors of the rich, and they were back then too.”

I’m pretty sure my teacher doesn’t like me, especially after I trashed Lincoln and said the South had the right to secede in my essay on the “Civil War”.

The classroom,however,is really bad. At the back there are 15 or so pictures of various presidents,prime ministers,etc. with some word document thing that says “World Leaders”, on the wall there’s a U.N. flag, and everyone in my class is a major social democrat.

Except for me and one other kid, who today talked about the Fed and fake money and how we were on a gold standard back then. He’s a Ron Paul fan, though I’m not sure if he’s read Rothbard/Mises/Hayek,etc.

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Everyday you should object to that drivel. You may get others to stop and think. Break the vicious cycle of government propagandizing!

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Print out these charts and bring them to class. Say to your teacher: “I always hear about how the rich need to pay their ‘fair share’…what exactly would a ‘fair share’ be?”

Make sure you get an answer. You might even add: “Doesn’t ‘fair share’ imply ‘equality under the law’? You mean everyone should pay the same amount? Or the same percentage?”

Again, get an answer. Push her for an exact definition of “fair share”. A number would be nice. Like, say, percent share of the total taxes paid. I guarantee whatever she says will be lower than what it really is, currently.

Once you get an answer, you can break out these charts.

Share of total Federal Tax Liabilities

Share of Individual Income Tax Liabilities

And make sure you catch the part highlighted here.

Man what I would give to be back in school for a day or two. I can’t imagine how much fun I would have.

18

JJ, they are obviously not paying their “fair share” because there still exist people (poor, hungry, sick) that need moar. We need Obama to both (1) stop the rich from exploiting everyone else, and (2) to the extent that he fails at (1) (as would be evidenced by the very existence of haves and have-nots) to correct said mistake by making the rich pay the fruits of their exploitation BACK to the exploited. Duh!

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I know you’re just playing around, but honestly, the fact that there still exist poor people can’t have anything to do with “fair share” even by socialist standards. And I can guarantee with most of them, you can prove it …simply by getting them to give a definition of “fair share” before hand, and then present them with the facts that they are so blissfully unaware of…

Just like Stossel does with Al Sharpton at 3:50:

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fegeldolfy - that makes me rage so hard.

Let’s all ignore George Soros or Warren Buffet.