Questions About The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America

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Why does the world need a book trying to clean up the disgusting history of 19th century capitalists and treat them as though they are heroes?

John Jenkins There are some common perceptions that most of the successful business leaders of the nineteenth century achieved their success by exploiting employee…moreThere are some common perceptions that most of the successful business leaders of the nineteenth century achieved their success by exploiting employees and customers and by being ruthless with their competitors. In this book, Dr. Folsom provides many details to refute this perception. He divides the business leaders into two categories: political entrepreneurs and market entrepreneurs.

The political entrepreneurs such as Robert Fulton (steamboats) relied on government subsidies and other preferential treatment to develop new industries in ways that legislators thought would be beneficial, but these political entrepreneurs operated inefficiently and provided inferior quality of service at higher prices than the market entrepreneurs. I would agree that this form of crony capitalism that politicians enabled Fulton and others to exploit was disgusting.

On the other hand, the market entrepreneurs, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt (steamboats) and John D. Rockefeller (oil), achieved success by motivating employees to perform at high levels and providing customers with excellent value.

I conclude that this book is very much needed to disprove erroneous version of economic history that exist in textbooks and other media. This is a short answer to the question. I would encourage anyone who is open-minded and would like a more complete answer to read the book.
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