Sunday, July 26, 2015

On TR's Trust-Busting

What a bunch of bullshit. As Gabriel Kolko, Jim Powell, George Bittlingmayer, and numerous other historians have consistently pointed out, a) yes, there were a lot of mergers in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries but for the most part THEY FAILED, (or at the very least their profits took a hit), b) this was an era of DEFLATION in which the vast majority of consumers benefited, and c) competition was actually INCREASING in virtually every sector of the economy (including oil) and this was verified in the Census ("Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970", Part 2) ; the number of commercial and industrial firms having progressed from 1,110,000 in 1890 to 1,510,000 in 1910, a 36% increase! If you're asking me here, this had everything to do with Roosevelt's hatred of the wealthy ("malefactors of great wealth", he called them) and his undying faith in the ability of government to stick it to them and little to do with helping folks (though, as always, I could be wrong).

6 comments:

Teeluck said...

Hmmm, food for thought.

dmarks said...

"the number of commercial and industrial firms having progressed from 1,110,000 in 1890 to 1,510,000 in 1910"

It reminds me of the current call for massive federal government censorship and control, fueled by claims of "media concentration". When in fact the trend has been to more and more media voices. The claims of media concentration are very deceptive, rather cooked up. They use the qualifier of "major", which gives them an always-shifting, arbitrary target by which they can measure how many popular media outlets there are. This lets them not count the vast majority, and growing number, of media outlets, voices over all.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Hey, how you doin', Tee?

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

The truth, dmarks, is that monopolies are exceedingly rare in U.S. history. Even Standard Oil lost market share due to stiff competition and this was BEFORE the antitrust case was even heard!............And, yeah, the media thing has been cooked up, too, for sure.

dmarks said...

Business monopolies, or situations close to them, tend to thrive more than perish due to government intervention.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

The example that I like to give is Philip Morris. These guys practically wrote the tobacco bill and damned if it isn't exactly like you say (an increased market share, etc.).