In many areas, producers that refused to sell received death threats, had their oil cut off from the refinaries (transportation was under standart oil) and many other criminal things. Standart oil didn't compete better than it's competitors, it literally killed the competition.


No evidence for these death threats.

BUT SURE, THAT SEEMS FAIR TO ME!

Alright, so you built a company from the ground up, worked hard day and night, lowered prices intensely to beat competitors , and now you have to break up your company or we will shoot you. THAT SEEMS PERFECTLY FAIR TO ME.

Standard had 150 competitors in 1911 when the government broke them up, and did not have the monopoly power to raise prices to strangle the consumers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller#Monopoly That ought to address your question. Basically he did horizontal integration of all related industries, and vertical integration in his own industry.

Edited 5/19/2016 04:37:19

Capitalism is based on peaceful exchange of goods , with producers being able to compete with one another. While one can argue this results in homeless folk or something like that, it can't be said that mass threats of violence to force cooperation and folk carrying out that violence if their wants are not met is more peaceful.

http://chartsbin.com/view/oau

If standard oil was raising the prices of oil ridiculously, then why doesn't this chart show it?

Having a lot of competitors doesn't mean that they're all big enough to threat you. The world has many armed forces, but would you say that any has the power to overthrow the american power?

For Standart Oil, over and over ppl try to defend Rockefeller for some reason or whatever. Working hard isn't the problem, Hitler worked hard too, will you tell me now that working hard gives someone the right to conquer europe and burn jews?


I'll just quote the previous quote I posted:

In 1904, Standard controlled 91 percent of production and 85 percent of final sales.

A company that controls that many of a sector can already manipulate prices. Gosh, corporations already do that with way less percentage. Also there is no evidence that Standart would just stop at 91/85%, probably they would have take over all of it soon enough.


Also for the Oil prices, the raising wasn't global, but it was spreading out. Standart raised the prices in every area it had a monopoly and lowered in competition areas. Globally it would be a consequence of a monopoly a final price raise when they had the hole market. That's the way profit works...

Edited 5/19/2016 04:43:45

You're comparing someone who met the needs of the consumer peacefully, to someone who killed millions, and say they both should hav been treated pretty much equally? Insanity.

The Standard Oil case was another example of your favorite government intervening in business on the side of a bad business and weakening another party for competing. Standard Oil could not enforce a monopoly while raising prices, because it would have to constantly compete with other companies.

Not entirely true. When you have horizontal integration into other industries, such as rail, you could literally dominate certain regions, as creating a competitive rail to counter such a monopoly over a certain region would be costly prohibitive.

It most likely wouldn't be able to completely dominate against foreign oil.

Back to the main subject, the empire is fairly unsustainable. Even the neocons will have to admit this, as the empire falters.

Empires work, you just can't give into the people who call for them to disband. Most empires have been destroyed because a) multiculturalism (see Rome), b) forced to disband due to international pressure (Portugal, UK, France), or c) tried too much and made others angry and got gangbanged (Japan, Nazis, Italy, Hapsburgs). To avoid failing, therefore, ignore international pressure, do not try to get too large and do not embrace multiculturalism.

The Soviet Union collapsed due to economic pressure. The Roman Empire didn't fall to multiculturalism, they were always somewhat multicultural, I believe you're referring to them hiring up too many auxiliaries, which is something that ended up hurting them. If you're referring to the Gothic Uprising, remember, corruption was most likely the biggest factor in it, due to Roman officials selling food off instead of delivering it to the famine afflicted areas.

Edited 5/19/2016 16:18:28

Autocacies very much do work. The Soviet Union "fell", since one man chose to give new freedoms to the country.

However, the loss of freedom is not worth the stability in 9/10 cases.

After me, Jai, and that socialist Frenchman all left WL, I thought panda would probably stop talking about it too because we were gone and thus, no reason to argue. But it seems Smedly is still at it lol. Oh my gosh, dude, I can agree with you a lot on many issues but really, some of these ideas and theories make me wanna pray for America's next generation.




On Afghanistan, a lot of your facts are true but you have twisted some things. First off, many Taliban leaders did offer to bring Bin laden in. The CIA did not trust the terrorist group ( But they thought they should fund them at one point? go figure ) which was a no-brainer move. The Taliban was part of the problem anyway. Intervention in Afghanistan had to happen. The Pakistanis were getting their asses handed to them, Anti-Taliban leaders had their heads on sticks outside villages, and Iran was eyeing the region right up until operation Iraqi Freedom. I hate intervention, I really do. I hated putting ground troops to fight ISIS, the Arab nations have enough strength to get off there asses and do it themselves ( with our air support ) and if Obama puts troops in Syria I will personally write him a letter. Iraq was a mistake too, albeit a different type. But Afghanistan had to happen.

Edited 5/19/2016 18:27:35

The Pakistanis were getting their asses handed to them

By the Northern alliance?

Anti-Taliban leaders had their heads on sticks outside villages

So did Pro-Taliban leaders

and Iran was eyeing the region right up until operation Iraqi Freedom

And they would have had a worse time than the US fighting goat herders.

But Afghanistan had to happen.

So why don't you support overthrowing Saudi Arabia, Eretria, China and Burma?

the UK willingly gave up their empire to the USA

there is a good book that describes this phenomena

written by adrian waco

ya no haha

book is called the last thousand days of the british empire

I told you why. Sometimes in this world intervention has to happen. Burma will have revolution eventually and so will Arabia. Basically you just took my argument and did not actually listen. That's the problem with you. You are extremely closed-minded. You need to learn to think outside the box and not insist someone is wrong with a pre-thought out argument without giving their idea any real thought. That's how I became a Classical Liberal ( AKA American Libertarianism ) because I stopped fighting Democrats with arguments I learned from parents and friends. If more people in this world were open minded, a lot of problems would never have occ

Edited 5/20/2016 01:34:31

world intervention has to happen

Not a drop. There is no national government acting for the mores of folk, fighting for freedom.

Burma will have revolution eventually and so will Arabia.

Myanmar already did have one of kinds, and now is classified by those that would start a new war as a "near-full democracy". However, there's some myth that if the theode is autocratic, it will have a revolution. The Soviet Union ended when Gorbachöv started giving freedoms to folk (he never planned for giving full independence to any countries). Germany lost 90% its power after the Thirty Years' War, since it got decentralised - allowed each land their faith. And in the early days of America - there were revolts that were almost unstoppable (or rather, not worth getting stopped through compromise), and that's what led to the making of the presidency in 1789.

Revolution comes in weak countries, and it can come (and even work - 1989 Romania) in strong countries, too - but it's less likely, usually needs some confounding factors.

You just contradicted yourself. If revolution is inevitable , then there's no need for intervention. And do you know what's wrong with you? You call anyone who doesn't agree with your awful ideas of intervention and can beat your arguments , ignorant.

So far, you have not really beaten my arguments. You have just repeated stero-typical anti war banter without looking at facts except for those which supportive of your ideas.


How did I contradict myself? I never said revolution is inevitable in all countries? you went off on a rant trying to compare my Afghanistan intervention support to a hypothetical invasion of China or Burma ( which by its self is really silly )and I simply said that one of the many reasons that argument is unrealistic is that Burma will probably have revolution at some point anyway. Btw I do not consider you ignorant, just typical.


Sometimes somebody has to clean up the shit in this world nobody else wants too. America has had that job for a long time and its getting to a point when we don't recognize where we are actually needed and where we would just make things worse. We need start getting UN support and get the lazy European nations off their asses and actually make some real coalitions.

Edited 5/20/2016 13:57:57