Big Oil Abuse

I believe it is time for a repeat of this famous article written by Ida Tarbel about a hundred years ago regarding the famous Standard Oil Company.

Just substite Exxon-Mobil for Standard Oil Company.

(Mods, I believe this is old enough to not be copywrited.)

Ida Tarbell
History of the Standard Oil Company

Very often people who admit the facts, are willing to see that Mr. Rockfeller has employed force and fraud to secure his ends, justify him by declaring, “It’s business.” That is, “it’s business” has come to be a legitimate excuse for hard dealing, sly tricks, special privileges. It is a common enough thing to hear men arguing that the ordinary laws of morality do not apply in business. Now, if the Standard Oil Company were the only concern in the country guilty of the practices which have given it monopolistic power, this story would never have been written. Were it alone in these methods, public scorn would long ago have made short work of the Standard Oil Company. But it is simply the most conspicuous type of what can be done by these practices. The methods it employs with such acumen, persistency, and secrecy are employed by all sorts of businessmen, from corner grocers up to bankers. If exposed, they are excused on the ground that this is business. If the point is pushed, frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points that we are erring mortals and must allow for each other’s weaknesses!—an excuse which, if carried to its legitimate conclusion, would leave our businessmen weeping on one another’s shoulder's over human frailty, while they picked one another's pockets.
One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical. Canonize “business success,” and men who make a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes! The history of its organization is studied as a practical lesson in money-making. It is the most startling feature of the case to one who would like to feel that is possible to be a commercial people and yet a race of gentlemen. Of course such practices exclude men by all the codes from the rank of gentlemen, just as such practices would exclude men from the sporting world or athletic field. There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair. Yet Mr. Rockfeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has eve been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair. Business played in this way loses all its sportsmanlike qualities. It is fit only for tricksters…
And what are we going to do about it, for it is our business? We the people of the United States, and nobody else, must cure whatever is wrong in the industrial situation, typified by this narrative of the growth of the Standard Oil Company. That our first task is to secure free and equal transportation privileges by rail, pipe and waterway is evident. It is not an easy matter. It is one which may require operations which will seem severe; but the whole system of discrimination has been nothing but violence, and those who have profited by it cannot complain if the curing of the evils they have wrought bring hardship in turn on them. At all events, until the transportation matter is settled, and right , the monopolistic trust will be with us -- a leech on our pockets, a barrier to our free efforts.
As for the ethical side, there is no cure but in an increasing scorn of unfair play, an increasing sense that a thing won by breaking the rules of the game is not worth the winning. When the businessman who fights to secure special privileges, to crowd his competitor off the track by other than fair competitive methods, receives the same summary disdainful ostracism by his fellows that the doctor of lawyer who is “unprofessional,” the athlete who abuses the rules, receives, we shall have gone a long way toward making commerce a fit pursuit for our young men.

Worksheet and additional links