e-rich industrialists such as Carnegie, J.P. Morgan etc. added a ton of jobs thought out the entire nation with their businesses. They also donated a lot of their private money to charities. Namely, Andrew Carnegie donated over than 90 percent of his property and said, that this was an “upper-class-duty, the Gospel of Wealth” (The Men Who Built America). In this aspect, they were called “The Captains of Industry”.
On the other hand, these super-rich industrialists were labeled as “The Robber Barons” because the public felt that they cheated on the way how they go to their money, and also dictated it over the average citizen. Although they added many jobs in the nation, they also created the wages by themselves. Literally they were so “powerful that it can rule over people like a government” (Meyer, 5). Setting the wages as low as possible resulted to strikes and protests of the workers against the bosses. In documentary drama “The Men Who Built America” it showed the Homestead strike in 1892 in Homestead, Pennsylvania. When the monopolies decrease the wages down an enormous rate, workers of an industry will create labor unions and try to protest against them decreasing their, already low, wages. The decreasing of the wages were so bad, that some workers only earned $5 a week. The Homestead Act in 1892 was between the “Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers” and the “Carnegie Steel Company”. It resulted in that the strikers were defeated and a major setback in the unionization of the steel workers.
Even in today’s age, monopolies and big businesses can affect workers really harsh. If businesses spread out really big, they do not leave workers large opportunities for different jobs because they are in charge by themselves for this entire category. There is no competition anymore left. Monopoly and Monopsony are closely related. Easier explained: Monopolies are the only seller, and monopsonies are the only buyer. Like the independent journalist, contributing as a writer for the “New York Times” and also the “New Public”, Bryce Covert states: “Monopoly power allows a company that has eaten up an entire industry to fix prices for consumers, driving them higher than they would be if other companies were able to compete in the same market and offer lower prices.” (Covert, 1). If there are no competitions between businesses and industries, one single company can rule their wages, prices etc. all by themselves. And if there actually is a smaller company in the same place, the monopoly can destroy the little business by setting their own prices as low as possible, so all the customers will go to their shop, and so the small business will go broke.
The scary thing is, that some companies do not seem like a monopoly at the very beginning, because nobody was paying attention while there were growing their monopoly power. For instance, “Amazon does not, in some respects, look like a monopoly” (Meyer, 3). Three years ago, in 2015, Amazon had less worth than Walmart, but today it is almost three times more worth than the “big-box-king” (Meyer, 3). A quick statistic: Around 44 cents of every single dollar which an American is spending online, goes to Amazon. Not even close, but the next biggest online r
