Quotes About Competition

Unfettered markets tended frequently toward monopoly or, at least, toward unhealthy levels of concentration, and government sometimes needed to intervene to ensure the full benefits of competition

Rockefeller sounded more like Karl Marx than our classical image of the capitalist. Like the Marxists, he believed that the competitive free-for-all eventually gave way to monopoly and that large industrial-planning units were the most sensible way to manage an economy. But while Rockefeller had faith in such private monopolies, the Marxists saw them as merely halfway houses on the road to socialism.

Standard Oil had taught the American public an important but paradoxical lesson: Free markets, if left completely to their own devices, can wind up terribly unfree. Competitive capitalism did not exist in a state of nature but had to be defined or restrained by law.

If only Rockefeller had played fair, Emery insisted, he would have ended up the more powerful oilman.

Standard Oil was not content to advance its own interest; it worked actively to damage the business interests of its adversaries.

As far as Chess, Carley Co.'s territory is concerned, every effort is being made to dislodge Rice.

He also saw competition as a destructive, inefficient force and instinctively favored large-scale combination as the cure.

For all his success in bottling up pipeline bills, Rockefeller couldn't scotch the Tidewater.

John labored tirelessly to win control of Pioneer Oil Works and, instead of snuffing it out, favored its discreet absorption by Standard Oil.

Pierpont feared a replication of the railroad chaos, with overbuilding and price wars.

Hamilton opposed the vogue for state banks that proliferated in the 1790s, less from narrow political motives than from a fear that competition among banks would dilute credit standards and invite imprudent lending practices as bankers vied for clients.

U.S. Steel had pushed Frank Kellogg to target Standard Oil so as to deflect heat from itself.

Rockefeller and Charles clashed repeatedly over this question.

First, the railroads had engaged in such fierce, internecine price wars that freight rates had fallen sharply.

When playing checkers or chess, he showed exceptional caution, studying each move at length, working out every possible countermove in his head. "I'll move just as soon as I get it figured out," he told opponents who tried to rush him. "You don't think I'm playing to get beaten, do you?"12 To ensure that he won, he submitted to games only where he could dictate the rules.

Both refiners and railroads were struggling with excess capacity and suicidal price wars.

To the dismay of critics, Standard Oil and other trusts fared quite well during the prolonged downturn.

Standard Oil again benefited from hard times to extend its powerful reach.

George Clinton, his future political nemesis.

As the Mellons emerged as a worrisome threat in the export market, Rockefeller feared they might strike an alliance with the French Rothschilds.

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.

Several of them set the Ariel a pace, but all but two of them soon fell behind. One of these, a full type Curtiss, held a fair follow-up at a distance.

O sucesso sempre incomoda os medíocres ambiciosos, os sonhadores incapazes, os fracassados em geral.