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You realize when standard oil was ruled a monopoly and trust busted, it only had 19% of the US oil market share, right?

• nodamage 6y ago
  Huh? In 1904, Standard controlled 91 percent of production and 85 percent of final sales. Because of competition from other firms, their market share had gradually eroded to 70 percent by 1906 which was the year when the antitrust case was filed against Standard, and down to 64 percent by 1911 when Standard was ordered broken up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
  • viridian 6y ago
    When the government (congress) first sought to prosecute Standard oil among other companies in the late 1880s for noncompetitive behavior, the monopoly label was applied. This was a part of the actual formation of the Sherman antitrust act which passed in 1890, at which time standard oil refined about 19% of the oil in the US. I had my facts wrong though, I didn't realize that it took another 21 years after that for Standard oil to actually be broken up. That said, my point is largely more about the label of monopoly by the government than whether or not the company was broken up, so I think the argument still stands.