I was recently watching an Amazon Prime program titled "The Men Who Built America." It was well-done by editing out vast amounts of detail while honing a story connecting Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Edison and Tesla.
The most striking takeaway was the dynamic growth of a world without mountains of regulations. I have often wondered if the continuous slowdown in growth is a function of scale - that growth of larger entities simply becomes more difficult. While this may be a factor, there is nothing inherently so. Our slowed growth is likely due to regulatory inhibitions.
The next most striking takeaway was the uselessness of anti-trust. Teddy Roosevelt is featured in the program. In it, his populism is on display as he grabs the narrative of William Jennings Bryan to demonize these wealthy capitalists. Roosevelt focuses on Rockefeller and in 1911 wins a seminal anti-trust case against Standard Oil.
Rockefeller's company is broken into 34 pieces, in which the parts become much more valuable than the original whole and as a result, Rockefeller goes on to become the wealthiest man in the history of the U.S. My takeaway was that the result of the anti-trust action did not: 1) reduce Rockefeller's wealth or power, 2) result in better outcomes for the consumer or 3) restore power to suppliers.
Given this poor result, I reflected on anti-trust effectiveness and, on further study, I did not discover a single example of effectiveness. Instead, the competitive dynamics of capitalism serve to create change in 1) who is the wealthiest, 2) better consumer experiences and 3) a new group of suppliers. All anti-trust actions have simply slowed the marketplace in achieving the very things that anti-trust target.
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