Message from @sɪᴅɪsɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴇ
Discord ID: 531239917536411649
No evidence to support that
As soon as he would, competition would come in
There was an overall lowering trend as crude oil itself got cheaper
Not really
Standard oil did not control the oil extraction business anyways
All the aforementioned tactics basically dissuaded all but the most local competition
yes really
Yes he didn’t raise prices due to him fearing competition
They were more horizontally integrated than vertically integrated, yes
It would have been like that for ever
He often did raise prices
That’s why prices fell
He only lowered it when there was serious competition, a new market to expand into, or an internal cost savings
Monopoly prices in kerosene and other products made by Standard Oil would have simply been replaced with substitute goods which Standard Oil did not control.
Look at the monopoly De Beers had
They artificially sky rocketed diamond prices
No idea about de beers
So I’ll look into that
They're a diamond company who had a monopoly
Standard oil had 150 competitors
But yes your own graph shows prices fell in general
They started of much higher
Those are crude oil prices
Not refined product
Misred
But they did fall
As I said
Diamonds aren't even rare
Infact , Standard Oil had no initial market power, with only about 4 percent of the market in 1870.
But De Beers set their prices insanely high
They also spread campaigns that got us to propose with diamond rings
My point was that falling crude oil prices were the main drive behind Rockefeller’s drops in refined oil prices
It appears it wasn’t a natural monopoly
Not really the marginal competition
not especially, visitor
Obviously that was a factor but not the only factor
Unfortunately, I am unable to find historical data for refined oil prices
“the market has not been really free. In particular, in South Africa, the major center of world diamond production, there has been no free enterprise in diamond mining. The government long ago nationalized all diamond mines, and anyone who finds a diamond mine on his property discovers that the mine immediately becomes government property. The South African government then licenses mine operators who lease the mines from the government and, it so happened, that lo and behold!, the only licensees turned out to be either DeBeers itself or other firms who were willing to play ball with the DeBeers cartel. In short: the international diamond cartel was only maintained and has only prospered because it was enforced by the South African government.” @Anon365