Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

by Ron Chernow

As happened in the Great Depression of the 1930s, people were shocked that an effervescent economy could stall so woefully. As one contemporary observer put it, “It seems indeed strange that in the very midst of apparent health and strength … the whole country … should suddenly come to a dead stop and be unable to move forward—and that we should suddenly wake up from our dreams of wealth and happiness, and find ourselves poor and bankrupt.”

Telling for 2019?

One of Rockefeller’s strengths in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and then crafted mutually advantageous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper,

Hence, a perverse effect of the invisible hand: Each refiner, pursuing his own self-interest, generated collective misery. As Rockefeller phrased it, “Every man assumed to struggle hard to get all of the business … even though in so doing he brought to himself and the competitors in the business nothing but disaster.”