R.B.
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"Robber Barons" was what Matthew Josephson, political and economic commentator called the "captains of industry". He wanted his readers to be reminded of their European history class and of the armed thugs on hoarse back who stole and looted merchant's goods. He believed that their wealth came from a tax levied on the workers of the American economy. He did not believe that their own wealth was a product of their own creation.
The oil industry was a free-for-all in the late nineteenth century. By using deceitful, yet successful business tactics John D. Rockefeller began as an oil business book-keeper and rose to control a tenth of the entire US oil industry in only seven years. Scams such as creating new oil companies that appeared to be independent operators were used by Rockefeller to give his oil company, Standard Oil, the advantage. Typical of the other "captains of industry" in the late nineteenth century, Rockefeller, having used corrupt business tactics to build up his own company prove him to be a Robber Baron.
Rockefeller secretly controlled the new oil firms he created...