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0 pointsuiri9y ago0 comments

These tactics were not illegal when he used them. Although they may be considered anti-competitive, Standard Oil's monopoly waned after the turn of the 20th century. By the time that its monopoly was broken up in 1911, its market share had fallen to under 70%.

Rockefeller literally put the "anti-trust" in "anti-trust law" when he created the Standard Oil Trust. Standard Oil's lawyer conceived of a scheme whereby shareholders put their shares into a Trust whose Trustees held the shares for their benefit. This scheme was widely imitated by other businesses to the point that the word "trust" was about as tainted at that time as the word "corporation" is in our own.

A trust, like a corporation, is not in and of itself illegal or immoral. However, both are legal devices which can be used to further nefarious ends.

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ArkyBeagle9y ago

Or - "trust" became a curse word used by critics of that sort of business practice at the time. The world was all-new-and-all, and this was the base layer for legal strictures to follow. It's still all rather incoherent, as anyone who followed the Microsoft monopoly case can attest.

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