Chapter 24 Vocabulary Flashcards
Trust
A mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock; to another company. The Standard Oil Company became known for this practice in the 1870s as it eliminated its competition by taking control of smaller oil companies.
Syndicate
An association of financiers organized to carry out projects requiring very large amounts of capital.
Patrician
Characterized by noble or high social standing.
Social Darwinist
Believers in the idea, popular in the late 19th century, that people gained wealth by “survival of the fittest.” Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process.
Socialists
Those who hold the political believes in promoting social and economic equality through the ownership and control of the major means of production by the whole community rather than by individuals or corporations.
Lockout
The refusal by an employer to allow employees to work unless they agree to his or her terms.
Anarchists
Those who hold the political belief that all organized, coercive government is wrong in principle and that society should be organized solely on the basis of free cooperation. (Some anarchist practice violence against the state, while others were nonviolent pacifists.)
Thomas Alva Edison
An American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb.
Andrew Carnegie
A Scottish-American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He built a leadership role as a philanthropist for the United States and the British Empire.
John D. Rockefeller
An American business magnate and philanthropist. He was a co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust.
Samuel Gompers
An English-born American cigar maker who became a Georgist labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history.
Free enterprise
An economic system that permits unrestricted entrepreneurial business activity; capitalism.
