Читать реферат по английскому: "Was John D Rockefeller A Robber Baron" Страница 2

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Rockefeller was a man of religious beliefs, but he lacked charm, due to his distant and taciturn attitude. Anything that could increase profit Rockefeller would act on. Even if it was to reduce the number of drops of solder on kerosene by one penny could bring in more money at less cost. He always had the highest quality for the lowest price.

As a result Rockefeller’s success, the first of modern trusts were born. This innovation started a trust movement in the lead, whiskey, and sugar industries. Trusts were known to be associated more with monopoly. This angered the public and sparked protest among the reformers.

In the book The Rockefeller Files, by Gary Allen, Rockefeller is viewed as a robber baron. When John D. Rockefeller was coming close to monopolizing the oil industry, one of his most effective ploys was to capture a competitor from the inside. He would place his men inside a competitor’s office, or bribe employees of other firms to do his bidding( Allen 155). Today, John D.’s descendants now play the same game with our government. In 1894, Rockefeller’s corrupt influence started in the White House.

CRITIQUE SECTION

I disagreed with Matthew Josephson because I believe that the only way to get ahead in business is to buy out your competition. Rockefeller was trying to monopolize the oil industry and he was going about it the right way, by building a partnership with the railroad company.

I agreed with the Hidey’s points because Rockefeller was one of the main contributors to the big business boom. The alliances the Standard Oil Company made the competition disintegrate. Rockefeller revolutionized business by joining two businesses together that coincide with one another, which was oil and the railroad. Together they helped the economy flourish.

I agreed with Vincent P. Carosso because in the time Rockefeller was living there were rapid changes due to his success. He was a major factor in the world’s economy, which goes far beyond the barriers of the robber baron. The innovations Rockefeller was a part of still have foundation in today’s economy.

I disagreed with Anton Chiatkin because monopolization is what a businessman wants to ultimately achieve. That was the view of John D. Rockefeller. Chiatkin believed that monopolization was all that was wrong with American business. The jealousy of the public interfered with the overall monopolization of the oil-railroad industry, which made it impossible to accomplish.

I disagreed with the textbook; written by Divine, Breen, Fredrickson and Williams; because in big business every little penny counts when you are trying to monopolize it. Every advantage, no matter how slim it may be, means something. As long as the product appeals to the overwhelming majority the business will thrive a great deal.

I agreed with Gary Allen because I feel everyone can be bought with the right amount of money. This showed Rockefeller’s enormous power despite his absence from the political realm. Sometimes you have to take desperate measures in order to succeed. The way he bought out competitors may have been sneaky, but in the end it still got the job done.

In conclusion, I disagreed that John D. Rockefeller was a “robber baron”. He was more of an innovator of business. The doors to new ways of successful entrepreneurships and partnerships will be forever indebted to the ideas of John D. Rockefeller. In the 1870’ s the economy was booming because of the so-called robber baron’s ambitions to build. Today the economy has permanent scars of the great businessman. Whether or not the public thought he was ruthless and dispassionate, it did not justify his enormous accomplishments for the economy. Success and riches measured his ideas. Some of his tactics were conniving and deceitful, but that is what money can do to some people. The people that complain about his sneaky ways just do not understand because they were never and will never be exposed to probably one thousandth of his money. The fact that he had over 900 million dollars when he retired proved that he was probably one of the most prominent businessmen in American history, if not the most prominent.

PART TWO- Issue # 10: Was the New Deal an Effective Answer to the Great Depression?

The catastrophe that occurred, in 1929, because of the Wall Street debacle crippled the American economy, deflated the optimistic future most Americans assumed to be their birthright and ripped apart the values by which the country’s businesses, farms, and governments were run. In the 1920s the whirlwind of the boom economy was no longer present. During the next decade the inertia effect of the Great Depression stifled Americans attempts to make ends meet. By 1932 over 9 million people would be unemployed, but Franklin D. Roosevelt was the newly elected president and had a plan to give Americans some relief from this Great Depression, by issuing the New Deal.

A major question that historians have disagreed on has been whether or not the New Deal was an effective answer to the Great Depression. Roger Biles of Taking Sides, agreed that Roosevelt’s proposal was effective. It did not get America out of depression, but it implanted many stabilizers to avert another such depression(Taking Sides 221). Although many New Deal programs were temporary emergencies; like the Glass-Steagull Act, which forced the separation of commercial and investment banking; others lingered long after the return to prosperity. The New Deal was impressive in relief and social

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