Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company was founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and several of his business associates, including his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. It started out as a small Ohio partnership with its base in Cleveland but soon developed into one of the most dominant companies in the northeastern United States, putting numerous small corporations out of business in the process. John D Rockefeller began as a lowly oil business book-keeper in Cleveland, Ohio and in just seven years rose to control a tenth of the entire US oil business. "In the late 19th century the oil industry was a free-for-all, the law of the jungle ruled. Rockefeller used this 'individual freedom' to pursue several extremely successful and deceitful tactics to accumulate capital".
[...] In conclusion, the Standard Oil Company was clearly a monopoly and none of the other identified industrial organizations. The first covered industrial organization was one with perfect competition. In a perfectly competitive market, several conditions must be met. These conditions are atomicity large number of small producers and consumers on a given market, each so small that its actions have no significant impact on others), homogeneity (goods and services are perfect substitutes; that is, there is no product differentiation), perfect and complete information (all firms and consumers know the prices set by all firms (perfect information and complete information), equal access (all firms have access to production technologies and resources) and free entry (any firm may enter or exit the market as it wishes; low barriers of entry). [...]
[...] It is clear why the Standard Oil Company was a monopoly and not any of the other industrial organizations. The Standard Oil Company did not display perfect competition because there was no atomicity, perfect and complete information or equal access. The Standard Oil Company was the only supplier in the market and did not provide perfect and complete information or equal access. Also, the Standard Oil Company could not have been an oligopoly because that involves a group of suppliers collaborating. [...]
[...] This encompasses such anti-competitive monopolistic practices as price setting and price discrimination (The practice of charging different consumers different prices for the same product) in order to maximize profits. The Standard Oil Company's business strategies further helped define the organization to be a monopoly. the company grew larger through more effective business practices, it developed other strongly competitive (some say anti-competitive) strategies”. One major strategy that Rockefeller and his associates practiced as their company grew larger was the systematic take over of all competing companies. [...]
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