Wealth Against Commonwealth by Henry Demarest Lloyd read by Bryan Travis Part 1/4 | Full Audio Book
Wealth Against Commonwealth by Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847 - 1903)
Genre(s): Business & Economics, Political Science
Read by: Bryan Travis in English
Parts:
Chapters:
00:00:00 - 01 - Chapter I: 'There Are None'—'They Are Legion'
00:18:16 - 02 - Chapter II: Cut Off From Fire
00:46:54 - 03 - Chapter III: Prohibition That Prohibits
01:10:09 - 04 - Chapter IV: 'Square Eaters'
01:29:47 - 05 - Chapter V: Striking Oil, Part 1
01:56:24 - 06 - Chapter V: Striking Oil, Part 2
02:29:35 - 07 - Chapter VI: 'Not to Exceed Half'
03:00:41 - 08 - Chapter VII: 'You Are Not to Refine'
03:28:42 - 09 - Chapter VIII: 'NO!', Part 1
03:54:04 - 10 - Chapter VIII: 'NO!', Part 2
04:17:41 - 11 - Chapter IX: Who Piped and Who Danced
04:52:21 - 12 - Chapter X: Cheapening Transportation
05:16:00 - 13 - Chapter XI: Song of the Barrel, Part 1
05:47:28 - 14 - Chapter XI: Song of the Barrel, Part 2
06:16:05 - 15 - Chapter XII: Unfinished March to the Sea
06:50:58 - 16 - Chapter XIII: Purchase of Peace
Wealth Against Commonwealth documented the economic, social, and political harms of the oil and railroad monopolies during the United States Gilded Age from the 1870s to the 1890s. By concentrating and controlling large sums of wealth, power, and goods among a few corporations and industrialists, journalist and author Henry Demarest Lloyd argued monopolies threaten the well-being of society and democracy, the 'common wealth.'Through personal interviews, investigative reporting, court and legislative records, Lloyd revealed how the oil and railroad trusts, among others, actively suppressed competition and sought to control the supply of commodities to increase demand and prices artificially. Lloyd presented evidence from all levels of economic scale and stakeholders, from independent oil producers and refiners to transportation industries, from small towns to nations, from state and local courts to national legislatures.Henry Demarest Lloyd was a political activist and investigative journalist, or 'muckraker.' His activism, criticism of monopolies, and support of organized labor advanced the Progressive Movement. While writing Wealth Against Commonwealth, he reflected on the toll the work had taken on him in a letter to his mother, 'It keeps me poking about and scavenging in piles of filthy human greed and cruelty almost too nauseous to handle. Nothing but the sternest sense of duty and the conviction that men must understand the vices of our present system before they will be able to rise to a better, drives me back to my desk every day.' (Summary by Bryan Travis)