American Plutocracy forms Capitalist Estate Royalty
Victorian American Plutocracy – Robber Barons
“Robber baron” is a Victorian period critical label for American capitalists who created corporate monopoly by taking public resources, exploiting labor, crushing competitors, and charging the public for profit. Business men did all these activities both legally and illegally. It is their arrogant attitudes and ruthless methods to get rich and hold and expand their wealth, that give them bad reputations. Plutocrats use philanthropy to off-set public opinion, by donating some of their profits for public services or non-profit charity. The term ‘robber baron’ was an analogy to medieval German robber barons, local feudal lords and their highway bandits, who waylaid travelers claiming some tax or fine was owed. Raubritter were robber knights who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the Church) on the roads crossing their lands and waters.
The metaphor ‘robber baron’ appeared as early as 1859, when The New York Times used it to depict the business practices of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Titanic monopolists crushed competitors by sabotage, threats, assassinations, blackmail, rigged markets, and corrupted government. Greed and power has historically destroyed democracy continuously since first recorded in ancient Greece. Other labels for corporate plutocrats include ‘mogul‘, ‘tycoon‘, and ‘magnate‘.
The first famous American robber baron who created a royal dynasty for his family, was Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877). Vanderbilt is most known for planning, financing, and overseeing shipping and railroads. Vanderbilt created a trend for mansion building by American plutocrats comparable to European royal palaces.
Coal and oil tycoons John D. Rockefeller Sr. and William Rockefeller Jr., were the co-founders of Standard Oil. John Rockefeller (1839-1937) became the richest person in the world from corporate trust conglomerates and insider back-room business deals. John’s brother William (1841-1922) helped to build up the National City Bank of New York, which became Citigroup. The Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that Standard Oil must be dismantled for violation of federal antitrust laws; so it was broken up into 34 separate entities, which included companies that became Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and others.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish-American industrial steel magnate. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, trains, bridges, business bonds, and oil derricks. He built Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000. It became the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. Carnegie became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away $350 million (conservatively $65 billion in 2019 dollars) to charities, foundations, and universities – almost 90% of his fortune. His 1889 article proclaiming “The Gospel of Wealth” called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
J.P. Morgan (1837-1913) was an American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of his own banking firm J.P. Morgan and Co., which led to later companies ‘Morgan-Chase’ and ‘Morgan-Stanley’, J.P. was a driving force behind the wave of industrial consolidation. In 1900, the inventor Nikola Tesla convinced Morgan he could build a trans-Atlantic wireless communication system (eventually sited at Wardenclyffe) that would outperform the short range radio wave-based wireless telegraph system then being demonstrated by Guglielmo Marconi. Morgan agreed to give Tesla $150,000 (equivalent to $4,609,800 in 2019) to build the system in return for a 51% control of the patents. Almost as soon as the contract was signed Tesla decided to scale up the facility to include his ideas of terrestrial wireless power transmission to make what he thought was a more competitive system. Morgan considered Tesla’s changes, and requests for the additional amounts of money to build it, a breach of contract and refused to fund the changes. With no additional investment capital available, the project at Wardenclyffe was abandoned in 1906, and never became operational.
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Modern American Plutocracy – Digital Tech CEO Moguls
By MARCY GORDON Business Writer
“They command corporations with gold-plated brands, millions or even billions of customers, and a combined value greater than the entire German economy. One of them is the world’s richest individual; another is the fourth-ranked billionaire. Their industry has transformed society, linked people around the globe, mined and commercialized users’ personal data, and infuriated critics on both the left and right over speech.
Now Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook of Apple will answer for their companies’ practices before Congress for the first time as a group. Summoned for a House hearing, they’ll raise a hand (remotely) and swear to tell the truth, in the manner of tycoons of Wall Street or the tobacco industry in earlier high-octane televised shamings. It will be Bezos’ first-ever appearance before Congress.
The House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is capping its yearlong investigation of Big Tech’s market dominance with Wednesday’s teleconferenced hearing spotlighting the four CEOs.“It’s mostly theater. There are few genuine facts left to gather,” says Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan who focuses on antitrust.
Still, the CEOs’ approaches to the questioning are important, Crane notes. “Are they willing to admit that there’s a problem with Big Tech’s market power, or is it denial mode? Will they recommend innovative private solutions, or retreat into defending themselves as champions of consumer interests who play it fair?”
The bipartisan probe stands out in a capital steeped in partisanship, where Republicans and Democrats are now arguing over the size of new federal pandemic relief. It’s the first such congressional review of an industry that for over a decade has enjoyed haloed status and a light touch from federal regulators.
Critics question whether the companies stifle competition and innovation and pose a danger to society. The Judiciary panel collected testimony from mid-level executives of the four firms, competitors and legal experts, and pored over more than a million internal documents from the companies. A key question: Whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate for overseeing the tech giants, or if new legislation and more funding for enforcement are needed.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, has called the four companies monopolies, although he says breaking them up should be a last resort. With other Democrats, Cicilline has floated the idea of an antitrust moratorium that would block big corporations from acquiring smaller companies during the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans call the idea misguided and socialistic.
The tech companies now face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating the four companies’ practices, including the earlier acquisitions of smaller firms.
Facebook’s fiercest critics in Congress, including liberal Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, have put breaking up Big Tech companies on the table. And presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said breakups of the giants should be considered. Short of breakup, the scrutiny of the companies across the U.S. and abroad points toward possible new restrictions on their power.
CEOs follow the conventional playbook for finessing congressional “star chamber” hearings. “You act humble and you make your case,” says Gene Grabowski, a crisis communications expert at public relations firm k-global.
Bezos, the world’s richest individual presiding over an e-commerce empire and ventures in cloud computing, personal “smart” tech, groceries and beyond, initially declined to testify unless he could appear with the other CEOs. He’ll likely face questioning over a Wall Street Journal report that found Amazon employees used sensitive and confidential data collected from sellers on its online marketplace to develop competing products. At a previous hearing, an Amazon executive denied such accusations. Lawmakers from both parties suggested Amazon’s earlier statements could be misleading and might even constitute perjury. Bezos has said, “We don’t use individual seller data to directly compete with them.” Amazon says it doesn’t believe the Journal allegations are accurate, but has started an internal investigation.
Zuckerberg is a Capitol Hill pro by this point. He endured over five hours of grilling last fall by another House committee on hate speech, privacy, misinformation and Facebook’s widely-criticized plan for a new digital currency. He also met privately with key lawmakers and with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the tech companies and asserted without evidence that they are biased against him.
In the wake of George Floyd’s death and protests against racial injustice, Facebook’s handling of hate speech has recently drawn more fire than issues of competition and privacy, especially after Facebook’s refusal to take action on inflammatory Trump posts that spread misinformation about voting by mail and, critics said, encouraged violence against protesters. Zuckerberg has said the company aims to allow as much free expression as possible unless it causes imminent risk of specific harms or damage.
Pichai faced his own congressional interrogation in 2018 over online privacy and data protection, the danger of digital monopolies, alleged bias against conservative viewpoints and censorship by China. He acknowledged some points but avoided the yes or no answers that lawmakers demanded. EU regulators already have concluded that Google manipulated its search engine to gain an unfair advantage over other online shopping sites in the e-commerce market, and fined Google, whose parent is Alphabet Inc., a record $2.7 billion. Google has disputed the findings and is appealing. Attorneys general from both parties in 50 states and territories, led by Texas, launched an antitrust investigation of Google in September, focused on its online advertising business.
Apple, whose iPhone is the third-largest seller in the world, faces EU investigations over the fees charged by its App Store and technical limitations that allegedly shut out competitors to Apple Pay. Cook is expected to lay out the case that the fees Apple charges apps to sell services and other goods are reasonable, especially compared with what other tech companies collect.”
“CEOs testified via video to lawmakers, at times appearing together on the committee room display as tiny individual figures in a mostly empty array of squares. Most committee members were seated, masks on, in the hearing room in Washington. In nearly five hours of testimony and questioning, however, there were few startling revelations or striking confrontations. While the executives faced hostile questioning and frequent interruptions from lawmakers of both parties, little seemed to land more than glancing blows.” – July 30, 2020
Meanwhile most stocks were down this morning across the board, except for UPS who went up over a dozen dollars (+$20 at noon). After noon the 4 companies being questioned by Congress, even Amazon (who has the most wealth and power), went back to making profit as their stocks rose. Most other company stocks (out of 2,000+ companies listed) remained down.
[AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.]
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SCOD Public Blog 
Self-Publishing Paradox
Posted in Book Reports, Commercial Corporations, Crafts, Critical Commentary of Civilization, jobs, Languages, Pub Library, Services, Sales or Trade, Uncategorized with tags authors, books, famous, local, owners, paradox, popular, publishing, selfpublishing, shops, stores, writers, writing on September 27, 2018 by DrogoHow DC area book stores handle major publishers vs. local authors in 2018.
Book stores are still stuck in the old mentality with major publishers, rather than allow the flooded local markets to flourish with support. Retail profits largely hinge on perceived ‘popularity’ of brands, which is largely self-perpetuating based on reduced whole sale rates, and exaggerated sales advertising to push the merchandise on customers. Book mongers still have a very snobbish attitude towards local authors, even more so now that printed books are in competition with ebooks. Book mongers, like other capitalists will often declare that “there is a DEMAND’ for what they are selling, just as housing developers do when they create a artificial demand by making the supply and cornering the market with advertising and debt based commercial production.
Here is how one book store describes their consignment process on their website:
“Our consignment program helps us accommodate the overwhelming number of requests from local authors who wish to sell their books and host events at Curious Iguana. If, after reading all the information here, you have any questions, email. Please do not stop by or call the store with questions about our consignment program. Click here to download our Consignment Policies and Consignment Form for Author. Note that we do not read review copies, and we do not accept any books without a completed consignment form and FEE. About events – We receive numerous event requests from local authors every week. Only authors whose books have strong consignment sales and broad reader appeal will be considered for an event on a case-by-case basis. Authors should not expect that consigning books will result in an event.”
Consignment usually forces the local author to be in debt to the local store, rather than provide them with any net income. Local authors tend to purchase more books at stores from commercial authors in one visit, than their books may sell all year; so even local authors are more likely to spend more on international authors than their own book sales will make in years. After a few years of their books not being advertised, but often hidden, the author must then contact the store and ask what has sold, and then pick up their check if any have sold. Now that there are more local authors, they are even asked to pick up their remaining books to make room for others. In essence local authors are treated like cattle, and told they are not worthy to make money, and they should be lucky to have a consignment deal before getting kicked out. Quality differences in the contents of books, whether self published or not, have very little to do with these market issues; as mistakes can be found with many mass produced products. Even National Geographic published the wrong image of a sparrow in a major commercial release; not just typos but the very information that is the focus of the ‘best selling’ book can be factually wrong.
Perhaps some day there will be a book store just for local and self-published authors, and their books will be PURCHASED just like the major brand names are now, rather than relegated to forgotten shelves and treated as though they are not worth the paper they are printed on. Perhaps some day we will invest more in our local economies, rather than giving all profits to a few rich fat cats that could barely care less.
So in this area there are basically 2 stores that accept local authors, but due to demands by local authors that they have a place to sell their books, it is increasingly rare that the small portion of the store dedicated to local authors will have room for everyone in the flooded self-published book market. It seems that self-published is a niche market that is not being allowed space due to corporate monopolist priorities. The competitive cut-throat capitalist monopoly model of economics, stands in contrast to the sharing and networking pluralist (multiplicity) more free-market model. Some business workers pride themselves for being very morally patient with customers, clients, bosses, employees, co-workers, and partners; in that they value them as fellow humans and are very generous to the point of pleasantly accepting financial loss as sacrifice for more happiness. That moral model is considered a bad business model for serious capitalists however, because survival success of business is based on financial capital, not ethical capital. There is a strong historic argument to be made that more financial wealth can be made quicker and greater by meaner people that take huge risks, rather than generous people who tend to give away and share more (studies show these people are often considered ‘poor’).
Self-published authors can be economically vital, if local stores open to showcase them as the main product. Some regional examples may soon show that people will travel from around the world to visit unique collections that support populations directly with financing. Rather than stores asking you pay to maybe keep your book there temporarily, and refusing to talk to authors in person or on the phone about the issue of slavish consignment; an alternative option will be to support stores that support self-published authors, which would make independent authors the best meaning (and most fitting use) of the word ‘common’. Possibly current store owners don’t want to be harming the local economy by practicing their old business models, but supply and demand and advertising have very real aspects that corporations do not want commoners to discuss.
The self-publishing paradox is that although the book market is flooded by grassroots citizens writing and publishing books, the means to support them are not part of conventional business models. Even alternative efforts are suppressed due to social, economic, and linguistic self-destructive elitism. Most people that write books do it because they love it or are best at it, not because of the economic incentives because it is generally well known that artists, musicians, and writers are not given living wages. The attitude that the voice of the people is not worth hearing, has never been considered wise or good.
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