industrial robber barons

[Enforcer Talen]

of the 1800s - is what they did good for society, or bad?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

of the 1800s - is what they did good for society, or bad?

Well, obviously the construction of industry improved society in the long term. However, that isn't judging them as individual people--the industry would still have been built with the people in question replaced by other people. It's a little hard to make a moral judgement on a societal trend..

As for the people themselves? Again: judge them as individual people, based on the acts and deeds they did during their lifetimes.

[The Third Man]

the industry would still have been built with the people in question replaced by other people

But very probably people with a similar mindset, I'd suggest that it takes a certain personality type to achieve what they did, so perhaps we could make some generalisations.

I'm coming at this from a UK perspective, and specifically the perspective of someone who lives and works right slap bang in the middle of the crumbling legacy of these guys. I'd say good. What the industrialists achieved was to take brand new technologies and with huge resolve and determination implement them on a huge scale, and make that implementation successful. Its not an evil thing to do, its admirable. Things might be better if more people exhibited that kind of attitude today.

That's my thoughts on the morality of the individuals.

As for good or bad effects on society, again good. Whole viable communities grew up around these early capitalist ventures. Many of the houses, hospitals, schools, drains, libraries etc etc etc that were built are still in use today, for their original purposes. Above all the early industrialists offered honest, paid employment to large numbers of people.

You could however, argue that it was all exceptionally bad for other societies, for example the Indians who were robbed of their raw cotton to feed the mills of Lancashire.

[Joe]

Just a quick fact; recent research shows that John Rockefeller, often considered to be the essential Robber Baron, was not quite the Robber he was made out to be. Standard Oil was not built through forced buyouts; most smaller oil firms weren't turning a profit and the owners were more than willing to let Rockefeller buy. What he did after building his company was something else entirely, however.

Consolidation was good and completely essential in most industries due to economies of scale and to high fixed costs which need to be allocated over a very large number of units (something that is more difficult for smaller firms). There is nothing inherently wrong with consolidation, it's what companies do after consolidation that is bad. Americans were not starved by the robber barons, either; working conditions did indeed suck, but the cost of goods was on the decline and real wages were increasing throughout the entire era of the robber barons.

In any case, no one outside of the far left seriously questions the genuine good that they did for society, only some of the negative repercussions that resulted.