The Robber Barons and the Progressive Era | Tom Woods

Archived from the live broadcast, this Mises University lecture was presented at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 24 July 2014.

[bradleydavis]

Tom Woods changed my life... It is amazing how quickly he converted me into a full-fledged libertarian; literally took a week. 

[daleholmgren]

When I listen to Tom Woods, I feel like I'm listening to an intellectual giant in his prime.

[thomasgarrett]

Tom Woods is right. I was homeschooled and I do not remember being told that I should not like Vanderbilt or Carnegie.

[Bluuplanet]

At about 3:25, Tom says we're told, "...public servants intervened...now we have the level playing field of today."
Actually, we're told that we have a constant revolutionary battle against capitalism toward achieving a level playing field.

[macsnafu]

That's an important variation on regulatory capture. Not that businesses necessarily want government regulation, but rather, if it can't be avoided, then they go ahead and engage in regulatory capture. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that light.

[PhilosopherRex]

The State, IMO, created the conditions that facilitated the later demonization of some of these effective capitalists through the creation of limited liability laws - falsely insuring society against the potential damage that a corporation might cause. Limited liability also puts a pressure on investors to invest in a limited liability firm instead of their own business or local business that they can keep an eye on.  I suspect this was not an unwanted State protection on the part of many of these businessmen however as it would have brought a lot more investment into their firms. As a student of Austrian econ myself, I find the lack of mention of this frustrating.

[JRJohnson]

At about 40:00 you talk about predatory pricing and pricing competition out What about lobbying Congress for labor, environmental, or other laws that instead of product price, raise the price of doing business to the point that competitors can't start? I seem to recall Pepsi and Coke did that some time back

[Devin_Stromgren]

Hill owned a farm in my county in the furthest northwest corner of Minnesota. It's where he exiled his son after he got sick of him wasting his money partying it up in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The farm is still here.

[AV]

Is it weird that these are the types of videos i watch when im high on drugs

[homewall]

Chain stores have an advantage in that customers prefer them; they have reasonable prices; they have known supplies; they have a brand to protect; they are consistent as you move around the country.

[woolcycle]

@misesmedia - any chance you guys could re-upload this video or change the settings to allow the closed captions to show? Thanks a lot!

[jayb-clay]

To be fair Rockefeller did say competition is a sin. Every biographer on him quoted him with saying that.

[genli]

A good example: the war between Amazon and the book publishers. They are trying to get minimum price agreements to keep Amazon from discounting their ebooks so much that they are below the average costs to produce a book (a large amount of the costs are actually in editing and marketing--human work that isn't made cheaper by digitization) and Amazon is claiming that they are therefore price fixing and is fighting for the privilege of selling the books at a loss.


The margins on book publishing are TERRIBLE which is why the publishers love the big bestsellers and use them to basically fund everything else that's published....which mostly loses money.

[profoundwill]

Hell on Wheels beautiful stated the incentives for inefficient rail lines in that series. Colm Meaney is an amazing actor. I dunno if there was a secret libertarian or economist in the writing of that show, but it's a point that really hits the nail on the head.

[Melki]

49:00 But this example itself shows that people do use selling below cost as a strategy to be a monopoly. Don't tell me that the market has a built in mechanism to protect low prices / high quality low prices. As soon as one play the game of selling below cost, they can't but to raise back the price later.

Tell me what if the products were intangibles? like services, how would the market would balance that without regulatory interventions?

[ProFilmsUSA]

List of all the recommended reading in the video please?

[rlkinnard]

Adam Smith pointed out that a lot of the CEOs are not under control of the real owners; that is known as the agency problem. You understand that Buffett is paid 100, 000 dollars with no stock bonuses; Bezos was paid nearly 81, 000 with no stock bonuses though Amazon paid for his security, Charlie Munger is paid 100, 000 dollars (though Buffett's security is paid also.). There are a lot of people who wonder why people who provide little value should be paid so much more than Buffett or Bezos or Munger. I don't think that envy is the cause of my question.

[danielwarton]

Two thoughts on Tom’s thoughts on predatory pricing.
If the company that idea it drives the others out of business, they get to buy all their bankruptcy stock and further cement their monopoly.

If the chain store operates on a loss leader and subsidises stores from their profitable
ones, someone else coming along doesn’t need $3 million to compete as they don’t have the buying power of the large chain. The chain can buy eggs for say $1 a dozen because they have 50 stores and can leverage greater buying power.
The independent store buys eggs at $1.50 per dozen and is already down 50% on their margin.

[icewater]

Envy - especially mass envy - is a social signal that should not be dismissed.

[jimmyrk]

James Hill and VP Harris both came from humble circumstances...