Discussion
Tarbell's *History* changed the way the country saw Rockefeller. She punctured his myth of brilliance and competence, and showed how he owed his fortune to swindling and cheating. She cut him down to size. She was a key figure in the American trustbusting movement, a catalyst for the revolution that saw Rockefeller and his fellow oligarchs overthrown.
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Today, we are back at square one, but we have advantages that Tarbell and the other trustbusters lacked. For one thing, we have *them*, the lessons of their fight and the inspiration of their victory. For another, we have the political wind at our back.
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All over the world, from China to Canada, from the EU to the USA, politicians have felt emboldened (or forced) to launch anti-monopoly efforts the likes of which have not been seen since the Carter administration:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/09/elite-disunity/#awoken-giants
What's more, these enforcers aren't alone - they can and do collaborate. Because these tech companies run the same swindles in every country in the world, enforcers can collaborate on building cases against them.
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All over the world, from China to Canada, from the EU to the USA, politicians have felt emboldened (or forced) to launch anti-monopoly efforts the likes of which have not been seen since the Carter administration:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/09/elite-disunity/#awoken-giants
What's more, these enforcers aren't alone - they can and do collaborate. Because these tech companies run the same swindles in every country in the world, enforcers can collaborate on building cases against them.
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After all the facts of Big Tech's crimes are virtually identical, whether you're in the UK, Singapore, South Korea, Canada or Germany:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter
This is an advantage that the trustbusters who took down Rockefeller could only dream of. Like Big Tech, Rockefeller had a global empire, but unlike Big Tech, Rockefeller abused each of the nations of the world in distinct ways.
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This took a *hell* of a long time. The Sherman Act (which was used to break up Standard Oil) was passed in 1890, but Standard Oil wasn't broken up until *1912*. It took perseverance through setback after setback, it took the compounding tragedies that drove people to question the order and demand change, and it took unglamorous organizing and dramatic street-fights to escape from oligarchy's powerful gravity well.
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