David Rosenthal: prediction

Transcript context

…All right, I fully take back my comment earlier that it seems like the railroads made it out okay. I think they actually did. I mean, this was Rockefeller’s style and Standard Oil’s style is like we're going to let you live. We're going to be benevolent dictators. We're going to let you continue, you’re just going to remember that our knife is pressed against your back at all times. After this, it's done. This is the story of how Standard Oil became Standard Oil. Rockefeller, Standard—they have won on a scale that nobody has ever won before. Since their competitors are obliterated, new upstart technologies are co-opted, all of the suppliers are reduced to total lackeys. We didn't talk about the customers. This is great. Most kerosene is sold at retail in America in grocery stores. In the early 1880s, Standard decided to run the same playbook that they've run with the railroads with the grocery stores in America. They go to them and they say, hey, you know it's expensive for you to set up and give shelf space and everything to all of these cans that are all non-standardized Standard Oil kerosene in your stores. From now on, all Standard kerosene needs to be sold in Standard canisters that we set the terms on, we fixed the price, and we tell you where you're going to put it in your stores. Some stores bristle at this and say they're not going to do it. Standard sends out a letter in Mississippi—they had a particular problem with this. They send out a letter to all the groceries in Mississippi. They say, if you do not buy our oil, we will start a grocery store chain to compete with you and sell goods at cost and put you all out of business. This is in writing sent to all of them. You can just feel the American public and Washington getting stirred up about like okay, monopolies are pretty bad. We really need some legislation about this.…

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