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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: robber barons
Message-ID: <391@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 19:00:39 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.391
Posted: Fri Dec  7 19:00:39 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Dec-84 06:20:48 EST
References: <737@oliven.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 38

> []
> 
> >Exactly.  "private security firms are answerable to their customers".
> >It seems to me that both Libertarians and their opponents forget some
> >basic facts of history. In the 19th century the "robber barons" controlling
> >the oil, mining and other industries had their own private security firms--
> >they served their customers very well and massacred hundreds of union
> >members who were fighting for such radical ideas as:
> 
> 
> 	A brief view of the history books of the period will also give,
> numerous accounts of the national guard, federal troops ,local 
> constabulary etc. being called out to massacre union members.
> 	This was NOT a period of history that could be described as
> Libertarian , OR lassez-faire capitalist. The Republican party evolved
> into its present form during this era - selling favors to Big Business.
> 
> 	The abuses so ablely described above were , as always, the
> result of the corruption of the governmental process. Only governments
> can perpetuate monopolies by 'robber barons' on anyone else.
> 
> 	To try to lay the failures of that era at the feet of the
> Libertarians, is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.
> 
> 						danw

Oh, come now, how did "government" have anything to do with John D.
Rockefeller's control of 99% of the oil industry?  He took it over
all by himself!  This is precisely the problem Libertarians with
their belief in the magical "invisible hand" fail to address:
how did once free markets come to be dominated by a few firms?
Does this not seem to have been a natural outgrowth of the economic system
itself?  What would prevent Standard Oil from acquiring a monopoly
with no government intervention?  The fact is they did so.
Why has our present economy become more and more dominated by large
oligpolies?
 
tim sevener whuxl!orb