[OPE-L] The Rockefeller Boys

From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Wed Apr 04 2007 - 22:27:56 EDT


-------------------------- Original Message -------------------------
Subject: The Rockefeller Boys
From:    "Jonathan Nitzan" <nitzan@yorku.ca>
Date:    Wed, April 4, 2007 8:53 pm
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Bichler, Shimshon, and Jonathan Nitzan. 2007. "The Rockefeller Boys."
Science & Society 71 (2, April): 243-250.

ABSTRACT:

Rockefeller’s global reach -- from the University of Chicago to the Holy
Land.

FROM THE ARTICLE: John D. Rockefeller knew a thing or two about power.
His Standard Oil of New Jersey became a blueprint for corporate
centralization. He pioneered new methods of stock rigging and financial
mischief. He destroyed competition wherever he could and set new
standards for industrial sabotage and union busting. He manipulated the
tastes of "rational consumers" and made "policymakers" dance to his
tune. He used violence to expropriate from indigenous Americans their
resource-rich lands, and religion to pacify their resistance. He
harnessed the U. S. military to impose American "free trade" on the rest
of the world. Raw power made Rockefeller and his family enormously rich.
And yet, to the end of his life, John D. insisted that his best
investment ever was the $45 million he donated to rebuild the Baptist
University of Chicago. Rockefeller saw Chicago as a religious asset. The
philanthropy helped silence his critics in this world and pave his way
to heaven in the next. It bought him the loyalty of spiritual shepherds
and academic retainers, all eager to sing the praise of Standard Oil and
glorify its devout owner. But in the long run the biggest yield came
from the university’s department of economics.

FULL TEXT:

http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/228/

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Jonathan Nitzan

Political Science
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, Ontario, M3J-1P3
Canada
Voice: (416) 736-2100, ext. 88822
Fax: (416) 736-5686
email: nitzan at yorku.ca
website: http://bnarchives.net
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