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This post is in response to the question “What are Burt Folsom's reasons for wanting to transform the term "robber baron" to have a positive connotation?” posed by @reagan.sturges
What Are Robber Barons?
Robber Baron is a negative term used to describe individuals who gained tremendous wealth during America’s Gilded Age (America’s, n.d.). The term is often used to point out that these individuals gained their platform of wealth through business practices such as exploiting their workers and the formation of large trusts (Schneider, 2020).
How Can Robber Barons be Positive?
Dr. Burt Folsom (2010), in a speech over his book The Myth of the Robber Barons, stated that there are positive lessons that we can learn from these former titans of industry. He divides the industrialists into two categories, political and market entrepreneurs.
Political entrepreneurs are those who tried to succeed in an innovation environment by asking for government funding for their inventions, and improvements on those inventions. On the other hand, market entrepreneurs are businessmen who—without the help of any government subsidies—were still able to build successful businesses. In fact, Folsom argues that because they had to work harder to succeed without “government hand-outs” that it actually led to more innovation, longer-lasting businesses, and more profits.
These positive business outcomes are why Folsom argues that there can be some positive associations with the term Robber Baron. He states that by looking at the history of the industrial age, and the rise of the Robber Barons, we can see better methods of how to conduct businesses and the negative effects that government subsidies would provide. The fact that Robber Barons, even without government subsidies that would have provided them start-up money, were able to ultimately be more successful than their counterparts that had that extra help speaks to the fact that businesses can succeed simply through innovative ideas and a drive to work hard. Folsom believes that understanding this part of history, and having a different viewpoint of what the companies run by Robber Barons did, will lead to a public that can better understand what it takes for businesses to succeed.
Works Cited
Schneider, S. (2020, May 27). robber baron. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/robber-baron
America’s Gilded Age: Robber Barons and Captains of Industry. (n.d.). Maryville Online. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from https://online.maryville.edu/business-degrees/americas-gilded-age/
Folsom, B. (2010, August 3). Burt Folsom on Myth of the Robber Barons. C-SPAN. https://www.c-span.org/video/?294883-2/burt-folsom-myth-robber-barons