Paper Topic:

Book review on `The Myth of the Robber Barons, a new look at the rise of big business in america, fourth edition` by Burton W. Folsom, Jr.

p 1

The Myth of the Robber Barons The Myth of the Robber Barons The Myth of the Robber Barons

Business historian of Murray State University in Kentucky , Burton W Folsom Jr 's illustrative work , The Myth of the Robber Barons , unfolds the manufactured myth of Robber Barons and manifests the misplaced victory of industrial and economic progress of America . It tells the story of earliest entrepreneurship in America and depicts six large and inspiring entrepreneurs behind the industrial revolution

The history fabricated by many historians illustrates that 19th century

of American history is marked with the economic exploitations of "robber barons ' that deprived American citizens of the potential benefits of industrialization and collected huge profits for themselves . But some of the great industrialist and businessmen of the 19th century America have also been equated with robber barons ' and their accomplishments have been labeled as the result of exploitation , theft and treachery against their fallow countrymen . According to this myth of robber barons great entrepreneurs like Carnegie , Vanderbilt , and Rockefeller who helped America to establish itself on sound economic footings and constructed huge infrastructures of banks , railroads , steel mills and cities , have been displayed as incarnations of exploiters with hideous agendas

Dr . Folsom tries to cast away these fabricated notions and manifests a clear distinction between the exploiters and those entrepreneurs who struggled in an opposite way . These leaders worked to eliminate disparities in the industrial milieu and to break the monopolies . They further helped to create a just and progressive society by tackling social issues such as poverty , illiteracy etc . Folsom does not deny that there were no corrupt and malicious entrepreneurs . He describes that there were numerous entrepreneurs who established their influence in the political and official sectors in to serve their own vested interest . These entrepreneurs were political in nature and worked only to establish and strengthen their business empires Folsom explains these two distinguished types of entrepreneurs in details and his in-depth analysis of these distinct types shows apparent differences among them . He categorizes these entrepreneurs as market entrepreneurs ' and political entrepreneurs ' but further clarifies that no entrepreneur can be classified into a single category as their activities and objectives are overlapped . Additionally , he displays the both trends i .e . political and market intermingle with each other and most entrepreneurs possess the characteristics of the both categories Folsom further illustrates the traits and characteristics of these two types of entrepreneurs and says that political entrepreneurs fit the traditional robber barons class i .e . their objectives and the means to achieve those objectives are substantially fraudulent and are comprised of dishonest practices like exploitation , political manoeuvres etc . He further displays that these business empires got political and official investments through different means and spent these huge amount in useless activities . The end products of these companies were cheap and of poor quality as their main concern was outside the customers ' domain Their only concern was to get things done rapidly and to earn profits These organizations further...

5 pages

31.5 KB

Free sing-up