Oil and Ideology

324 Pages·2000·5.71 MB·english

by  Roger M. Olien

OIL AND IDEOLOGY
The
LUTHER
HARTWELL
HODGES
SERIES
ON
BUSINESS,
SOCIETY,
AND THE
STATE
WILLIAM H. BECKER, EDITOR

OIL
The
Cultural
AND IDEOLOGY
Creation
ROGER M. OLIEN & DIANA DAVIDS OLIEN
of the
American
Petroleum
Industry
The
University
of North
Carolina
Press
Chapel Hill
& London
∫ 2000 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Designed by April Leidig-Higgins
Set in Carter & Cone Galliard type
by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence
and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for
Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Olien, Roger M., 1938–
Oil and ideology : the cultural creation of the American petro-
leum industry / by Roger M. Olien and Diana Davids Olien.
p. cm.—(Luther Hartwell Hodges series on business, society,
and the state)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-8078-2523-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
isbn 0-8078-4835-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Petroleum industry and trade—Moral and ethical aspects—
United States—Historiography. 2. Petroleum industry and
trade—Government policy—United States—Historiography.
3. Petroleum industry and trade—Moral and ethical aspects—
United States—Public opinion. 4. Standard Oil Company—
Public opinion. 5. Rockefeller, John D. (John Davison),
1839–1937—Public opinion. 6. Public interest—United States
—Public opinion. 7. Public opinion—United States.
i. Olien, Diana Davids, 1943– . ii. Title. iii. Series.
hd9565.06473 1999 338.2%7282%0973—dc21 99-29765 cip
04 03 02 01 00 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of J. Conrad Dunagan

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Manhood against Money 1
2 Hasting to Get Rich 21
3 Numerous O√enses
against Common Morality 55
4 Believing the Worst 83
5 Running Out of Oil 119 Contents
6 A Wasting Asset 141
7 Talking Past One Another 163
8 Visions of Chaos 185
9 Monopoly Revisited 209
1O Fightin’ Oil 227
Conclusion 251
Notes 261
Index 299

Preface
Several years ago, a friend and colleague reacted to our reexamination of the
frequent attacks on the Standard Oil Company by objecting, ‘‘But everybody
knows what Rockefeller did!’’ His comment was a highly accurate summation
of opinions that prevail in academic circles and in the larger American society.
Everybody knows what John D. Rockefeller did. College-level textbooks com-
monly include his public life in the context of conventional ‘‘robber baron’’
chapters. Authors of recent best-selling books about him and the American
petroleum industry present a more nuanced assessment, but they still tend to
take many of the charges of unethical and anticompetitive behavior for granted
and move on from that assumption. In The Prize, for example, Daniel Yergin
carries forward in his story the charge that Standard received important ‘‘draw-
backs,’’ and he takes other allegations made by Rockefeller’s critics at face
value. His thumbnail characterization, ‘‘a ruthless competitor that would cut
to kill,’’ was taken from Ida Tarbell. Ron Chernow, in Titan: The Life of John D.
Rockefeller, Sr., presents versions of events taken from some of Rockefeller’s
shrillest critics and uses them to justify his assumption that Rockefeller was a
ruthless competitor. From that he develops a central motif, explaining how
Rockefeller could ‘‘square his actions with his conscience.’’∞ Defenders of the
regulatory state, from Theodore Roosevelt onward, commonly begin with the
‘‘Standard Oil story’’ to justify federal intervention in corporate a√airs. In
short, Standard’s predations and the anticompetitive and anticonsumer iden-
tity of the domestic industry are largely taken as ‘‘given.’’