1. I would say that the power of economic, cultural and political of the Standard Oil has led to the big changes to the society. Based on the text book mentioned that “Rockefeller’s company was capitalized at $70million and produced 90 percent of the nation’s refining output.”(p79) This has shown how strong the economic power of Standard Oil is. The Standard Oil Company built the facilities, employed thousands of workers, and it made the fuels that lead to the growth of auto industry. Standard Oil’s economic power was not exercised in keeping with the social contract of Rockefeller’s era. From the text it’s very obvious that Rockefeller went against the social contract, this can be shown when Rockefeller was practicing “power beyond right”. In additional he used questionable methods to eliminate his competitor from the oil industry. For an example “He made them ‘sweat’ and ‘feel sick’ until they sold.” This statement has clearly shows Rockefeller used aggressive ways to fight with the competitor for his own interest.
2. From the case, Standard Oil had exceeded the limits of business power. Business power can be defined as the force behind an act by a company, industry, or sector. Rockefeller used his business power to eliminate his competitors. He did this through using the dominance theory. Since Standard Oil had become such a power and large entity they were able to have a lot of control.
3. No I don’t believe that Rockefeller behaved unethically. He was a business man. He simply wanted to maximize his profits and decrease on costs to do so. He did this by producing in large quantities. And using large rebates on
