Corporations and American Freedom

The power of Corporate America has been a controversial issue for over one hundred years. Corporations abusing their power is an issue that goes back to the Gilded Age when tycoons such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan were considered "Robber Barons" for the way the treated their workers, created monopolies, and used their power to influence the government.

Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller

John S. Gordon claims that Rockefeller and Carnegie earned their power through establishing the oil and steel industry and that their products greatly improved the life of the American consumer. Though they are credited for improving society with their industries, the ways which they used their power to create monopolies and manipulate the government is a completely different matter. 

According to Howard Zinn, Rockefeller made secret agreements with railroads to ship his oil and eliminate his competitors from shipping. Rockefeller started a monopoly. As said by one of his competing refiners, "If we did not sell out, we were crushed out. There was only one buyer on the market and we had to sell at their terms." Rockefeller soon spread his monopoly over the iron, copper, coal, shipping, and banking industries. 

When Carnegie entered into the steel industry a high tariff kept foreign competitors at bay. Carnegie sold his company to J. P. Morgan for almost five million dollars. Morgan combined Carnegie's monopoly with others and made sure that Congress kept tariffs high to keep foreign competitors out of the market. William Whitney was a millionaire and secretary of the Navy during Grover Cleveland's Presidency. He built a "steel navy" by purchasing artificially high priced steel from Carnegie's plants.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison attempted to monopolize the film industry when the studios first began. Edison and a few other companies with similar interests formed the Motion Picture Patents Company or better known as the Edison Monopoly and demanded licensing fees from all filmmakers for using Edison's motion picture camera. 

Edison had control over the entire industry, except for the underground filmmakers. Eventually the government intervened in 1915 and disbanded Edison's Monopoly. Filmmakers were once again allowed to create their own businesses free of Edison's control. 

Big Business used its power to further divide the line between the rich and the poor. They influenced the government to create tariffs and benefit their industries in various ways. Big businesses have bullied smaller businesses into selling out. All of these things still occur today. Even today Big Business is abusing their power and manipulating anyone that stands in their way.

Today a huge monopoly is Netflix. They have been almost solely responsible for shutting down video rental stores all over the nation. Due to their mail system and digital rentals the Blockbuster and many other rental stores have closed down the majority of their shops. There are very few options when it comes to video rentals. Netflix is a monopoly on the rise and an industry that can control what people watch may play a part in politics in a near future.

Perhaps the biggest industry with the most control over the American people is the oil industry. Oil is in high demand so the companies can choose whatever price they see fit. Oil companies have influenced the government to limit the amount of drilling in the United States in order to slim down the competition. This has forced a great amount of oil to come from foreign drilling sites, which greatly increases the price. It is impractical to retaliate against the oil industry since the use of gasoline for cars is so essential to our society. Although shipping oil from other countries does increase its price, oil tycoons are making a fortune from all the money that people spend on gas to get to school, work, hospitals, and anywhere else that is necessary for everyday life. Any corporation that produces a product that is essential to the lives of the American people, has power that they can use to manipulate the government or the people. If corporations want to be treated as people then they should treat their consumers in a way that reflects their humanity.