A mostly free one, right?

Ye

Do you support trumps tariffs?

Because that sort of discourages trade

Not really no

Oh

I don’t think tarrifs are good

Oh yeah

But I support him bringing free trade from other countries

I did research on Rockefeller once

as in other countries lowered tarrifs

Standard oil is also a myth

He did all sorts of questionable things to secure his monopoly

That’s a HUGE myth

Yep

The companies also kept on lobbying to keep monopolies legal

He’s get his monopoly to boycott any railroad that served his competitors, since losing his business would destroy the railroad

He’d buy all of the pipeline networks surrounding competitors’ oil refineries so they couldn’t ship in new oil

He’d even buy every single piece of land around a competitor’s refinery so they couldn’t build their own pipelines out

He just had that much money

But he also did plenty of good stuff with the money

Like, his son basically built our town

Refined oil prices fell from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869, to 10 cents in 1874, to 8 cents in 1885, and to 5.9 cents in 1897.

But he acquired it through very questionable means

There’s too many myths surrounding standard oil

That’s due to a huge increase in supply

as a monopoly

He wasn’t exploitative of consumers

Just of his competitors

The companies did questionable things

Natural monopolies , when they exist they’re efficient

You can't deny that

How?

he didn’t want to raise prices due to fears of competitor.

Competition

Monopoly = No competition

When a competitor arises, they can crush them

Because they wouldn’t be able to raise prices as competition would come in, wouldn’t be able to give back quality etc

Yes but they would be efficient

They also have a large money supply

Standard Oil was pretty efficient, but that was only because oil had yet to gain traction in the economy and so he had to lower prices to make it a viable fuel