Did you mean: robber baron, Robber baron (industrialist), Robber Baron (1910 Film), Robber Baron Music, Who were the "robber barons"? (history), The Robber Barons (band)
| Dictionary: robber baron |
| 5min Related Video: robber baron |
| Investment Dictionary: Robber Barons |
A disparaging term dating back to the 12th century which refers to:
1. Unscrupulous feudal lords who amassed personal fortunes by using illegal and immoral business practices, such as illegally charging tolls to passing merchant ships.
2. Modern-day businesspeople who allegedly engage in unethical business tactics and questionable stock market transactions to build large personal fortunes.
Investopedia Says:
Due to the robber barons' unethical business practices, such as the exploitation of labor, the general public typically regards these aggressive capitalists with disdain. However, some historians argue that the late-19th century entrepreneurs usually referred to as "robber barons" - including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller - are responsible for building a large portion of the U.S.'s current economic clout, because of their large investments in burgeoning American industries. Many also went on to become high-profile philanthropists.
Related Links:
What do elves have to do with investing? Meet the fairytale creatures running around Wall Street. Elves And Gnomes: A Fairytale World Of Investing
From godfathers to perps, familiarize yourself with the "criminal elements" creeping around Wall Street. Handcuffs And Smoking Guns: The Criminal Elements Of Wall Street
The better you understand why insider trading can be criminal, the better you'll understand how the market works. Defining Illegal Insider Trading
Company managers are often skilled at fooling investors. Be critical and don't believe the hype. Get Tough On Management Puff
Financial statements don't tell you everything about a company's health. Investigate the management behind the numbers! Evaluating A Company's Management
| US History Encyclopedia: Robber Barons |
At the turn of the twentieth century, crusading journalists and other critics scornfully labeled the leading business titans of the age, the "Robber Barons." The term grew from the overwhelming power these industrial giants wielded over many aspects of society and the resentment those suffering under their yoke felt. Disgust with the power of corporate America and individuals like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan led to the growth of the Progressive Movement and to reform efforts, including antitrust legislation, and investigative journalism, or muckraking.
Robber Barons were vilified for using the capitalist system to exploit workers, form anti-competitive trusts, and place the accumulation of wealth above all else. The belief that the rich could use whatever means necessary to increase their riches seemed to counter the ideals upon which the United States was founded. Muckraking journalists such as Ida Tarbell, who wrote about the abuses of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, reinforced the idea that the Robber Barons were a destructive force, a group of soulless industrialists willing to circumvent laws to achieve supremacy.
Although the exact origin of the term is unknown, Edwin L. Godkin, an editor of The Nation used the term in 1869, while during the same time period Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri used it in a speech. The term became a permanent part of the nation's lexicon after Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons (1934) gained wide readership, particularly among historians. Josephson wrote his book in reaction to the generally business-friendly works of the pre–Great Depression 1920s, which painted the Robber Barons as benevolent leaders. Josephson viewed the Robber Barons as unscrupulous pirates fighting to control the nation's economy.
The 1940s and 1950s witnessed a revival of the view of business leaders as industrial statesmen, which reflected the image of America's post–World War II economic, military, and cultural hegemony. A new school of historians wrote about these leaders as exemplary figures. Works in this vein include John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (1940) by Allan Nevins and Triumph of American Capitalism (1942) by Louis M. Hacker. In the same vein, but not quite as fawning, are two national prizewinning works: Morgan: American Financier (1999) by Jean Strouse and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1998) by Ron Chernow.
In the early twenty-first century, the public once again looked back on the Robber Barons much more favorably than they were viewed in their own times. Morgan and Rockefeller, for example, acquired tremendous wealth, but also donated large sums to philanthropic and cultural causes, and both had an innate sense of the social responsibility that came with great prosperity. Both worked diligently throughout their later years to become civic patron saints, believing that donating money would soften the legacy of their business actions.
The Robber Barons also benefited from the generally favorable light many high-profile chief executives enjoyed during the early twenty-first century. Comparisons of Morgan and Rockefeller to Microsoft's Bill Gates or Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett were not filled with scorn, but a sense of admiration and respect. In addition, the resurgence of the biography as America's favorite source of historical information helped soften the sharp edges of many Robber Barons. In recent years, most of the Robber Barons have been the subject of big general history biographies that have been predominantly favorable.
Bibliography
Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Random House, 1998.
Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901. New York: Harcourt, 1934. Reprint, New York: Harvest, 1962.
Porter, Glenn. The Rise of Big Business, 1860–1920. 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1992.
Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999.
| Economics Dictionary: robber barons |
A term applied to certain leading American businessmen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller. The term suggests that they acquired their wealth by means more often foul than fair.
| Wikipedia: Robber baron |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008) |
 |
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with Germany and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. |
 |
Look up robber baron in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
The term robber baron is the name given to unscrupulous and despotic nobility of the medieval period. In different countries the term has slightly different meaning. For example there is the German robber baron (German: Raubritter)[1]. In the United States, the term has been used to describe corrupt and unscrupulous industrialists.
Contents |
For one thousand years, from 800 AD to 1800 AD, tolls were collected from ships sailing on the Rhine River in Europe.[1] During this time, various feudal lords, among them archbishops who held fiefs from the Holy Roman Emperor, collected tolls from passing cargo ships to bolster their finances.
Only the Holy Roman Emperor could authorize the collection of such tolls. Allowing the nobility and Church to collect tolls from the busy traffic on the Rhine seems to have been an attractive alternative to other means of taxation and funding of government functions.
They abused their positions by stopping passing merchant ships and demanding tolls without being authorized by the Holy Roman Emperor to do so.[1] Often iron chains were stretched across the river to prevent passage without paying the toll, and strategic towers were built to facilitate this.
The Holy Roman Emperor and the various noblemen and archbishops who were authorized to levy tolls seem to have worked out an informal way of regulating this process.
Among the decisions involved in managing the collection of tolls on the Rhine were:
While this decision process was made no less complex by being informal, common factors included the local power structure (archbishops and nobles being the most likely recipients of a charter to collect tolls), space between toll stations (authorized toll stations seem to have been at least five kilometers apart), and ability to be defended from attack (some castles through which tolls were collected were tactically useful until the French invaded in 1689 and leveled them).
Tolls were standardized either in terms of an amount of silver coin allowed to be charged or an "in-kind" toll of cargo from the ship.
In contrast, the men who came to be known as robber barons violated the structure under which tolls were collected on the Rhine either by charging higher tolls than the standard or by operating without authority from the Holy Roman Emperor altogether.
Writers of the period referred to these practices as "unjust tolls," and not only did the robber barons thereby violate the prerogatives of the Holy Roman Emperor, they also went outside of the society's behavioral norms, since merchants were bound both by law and religious custom to charge a "just price" for their wares.
During the period in the history of the Holy Roman Empire known as the Interregnum (1250–1273), when there was no Emperor, the number of tolling stations exploded in the absence of imperial authority. In addition, robber barons began to earn their newly-coined term of opprobrium by robbing ships of their cargoes, stealing entire ships and even kidnapping.
In response to this organized, military lawlessness, the "Rheinischer Bund," or Rhine League was formed by and from the nobility, knights, and lords of the Church, all of whom held large stakes in the restoration of law and order to the Rhine.
Officially launched in 1254, the Rhine League wasted no time putting robber barons out of business by the simple expedient of taking and destroying their castles. In the next three years, four robber barons were targeted and between ten and twelve robber castles destroyed or inactivated.
The Rhine League was not only successful in suppressing illicit collection of tolls and river robbery. On at least one occasion, they intervened to rescue a kidnap victim who had been kidnapped by the Baron of Rietberg.
The procedure pioneered by the Rhine League for dealing with robber barons – to besiege, capture and destroy their castles – survived long after the League self-destructed from political strife over the election of a new Emperor and military reversals against unusually strong robber barons.
When the Interregnum ended, the new Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg applied the lessons learned by the Rhine League to the destruction of the highway robbers at Sooneck, torching their castle and hanging them. While robber barony never entirely ceased, especially during the Hundred Years' War, the excesses of their heyday during the Interregnum never recurred.
The reign of King Stephen of England was a long period of civil unrest commonly known as "The Anarchy". In the absence of strong central kingship, the nobility of England were a law unto themselves, as characterized in this except from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
When the traitors saw that Stephen was a mild good humoured man who inflicted no punishment, then they committed all manner of horrible crimes. They had done him homage and sworn oaths of fealty to him, but not one of their oaths was kept. They were all forsworn and their oaths broken. For every great man built him castles and held them against the king; they sorely burdened the unhappy people of the country with forced labour on the castles; and when the castles were built they filled them with devils and wicked men. By night and by day they seized those they believed to have any wealth, whether they were men or women; and in order to get their gold or silver, they put them into prison and tortured them with unspeakable tortures, for never were martyrs tortured as they were. They hung them up by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke. They strung them up by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted cords round their heads and twisted it until it entered the brain. They put them in dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads and so destroyed them. Many thousands they starved to death.
The term Robber baron was popularized by U.S. political and economic commentator Matthew Josephson during The Great Depression in a 1934 book.[2] He attributed its first use to an 1880 anti-monopoly pamphlet in which Kansas farmers applied the term to railroad magnates. The informal term captains of industry may sometimes be used to avoid the negative connotations of "robber baron".
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Did you mean: robber baron, Robber baron (industrialist), Robber Baron (1910 Film), Robber Baron Music, Who were the "robber barons"? (history), The Robber Barons (band)
 | Antitrust Laws |
| Muckrakers |
| The Fighting Kentuckian (1949 Western Film) |
 | Was Rockefeller a robber baron? Read answer... |
| How robber baron spent his money? Read answer... |
| Who is the robber baron of banking? Read answer... |
 | Wht is robber barons? |
| Why was Russell Sage a robber baron? |
| What is the theme of the robber barons? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Investment Dictionary. Copyright ©2000, Investopedia.com - Owned and Operated by Investopedia Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Economics Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Robber baron". Read more |
Mentioned in
