undefined | Better HN

0 pointsandrepd9y ago0 comments

No, because the point of the comment above you was precisely that, while he did so some good things in the end, and that was positive, he could just as easily been evil. And I shudder to think what a man with such power and ruthlessness and resources could do. He didn't do any major harm in the end, but he could very easy had, had he just been as ruthless and efficient and unwaveringly certain of the justness of his cause as he was, but with more sinister ends instead.

Benevolent dictators are bad, even if they did good, because them existing means a bad one could just as easily appear.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

ci5er9y ago· 2 in thread

Yes. I understand that point.

But I disagree that he could have done anything bad. What's the worst thing a monopolist can do? Charge unfairly large prices. By the time his the government got around to breaking up his "empire" for the politicians' own venal reasons, the global market had grown so large, that he already couldn't service it all himself. If he had raised prices as his end-game, the forces necessary to capitalize on that opportunity were already deployed and ready to strike at his market share.

The only dictator I see in the picture are the politicians/regulators who broke it up for their own political gain. Those are the dangerous ones because no matter what they do, we can't shop elsewhere.

johnloeber9y ago

> What's the worst thing a monopolist can do? Charge unfairly large prices.

It's not so much about Rockefeller being a monopolist as it is about him being a private citizen with truly enormous economic power, while being zealously devoted to a simple cause, and having the ability to rationalize away all doubts. These are worrying personality traits that facilitate doing great damage.

In the case of Rockefeller, these personality traits led to constructive outcomes, but the point I was trying to make toward the end was that it seemed a chance event that he would use his power for the philanthropic projects that he chose.

Here's a hypothetical: what if, for instance, Rockefeller had supported eugenics rather than medical science? How would that have turned out?

ci5er9y ago

That's an interesting hypothetical. What if Margaret Sanger -- or Teddy Roosevelt, his nemesis in these matters -- had been super-wealthy?

We can't know, of course, but it's an interesting question. I'll have to think about it and do some research! :-)

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse