Review: The Gentlemen Conspirators: The Story of the Price-Fixers in the Electrical Industry

The Gentlemen Conspirators: The Story of the Price-Fixers in the Electrical Industry by John G. Fuller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is it seems an obscure work on the same period of decades of price-fixing covered in The great price conspiracy;: The story of the antitrust violations in the electrical industry by John Herling...

[N] o matter what General Electric's past [has] been in regard
to the observance of the antitrust laws, "our record for the past
decade and more indicates that the managers of the General
Electric Company are making earnest and successful efforts to
comply not only with the letter, but also with the spirit of the
antitrust laws.

As long ago as 1946 . . . the company embarked upon
an educational program, a program which has been continued to
date with undiminished vigor, designed to sharpen the sensitivity and awareness of all our people to the role and importance
of the antitrust laws."

These words were spoken by Ralph J. Cordiner, Chairman of the Board of the General Electric Company during a May, 1959, appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly. They represent the image projected by General Electric at the time of the first
public rumblings of "The Great Price Conspiracy," the revelation and prosecution of which is covered in detail in this book. This is back when Kefauver had become known to the public at large as the chief enemy of crooked businessmen in the Senate. Heck, seven of these industry execs were fined and jailed! I think that's more than happened due to Enron, and none were jailed as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis, right? Still, what is makes me think of is the Terence McKenna quote:

Now technology throws a curve. And the curve is that we live so long, that we figure out what a scam this is. We figure out what what were supposed to work for isn't worth having, we figure out that our politicians are buffoons, we figure out that professional scientist are reputation building grab tailing weasels. We discover that all organizations are corrupted by ambition.

This is echoed here:

...the boys in the training school at GE were taught that "you can always get anybody to do what you wish," and furnished them with the principle, "never say anything controversial." ... you were supposed to spend a lot of time thinking of what other people thought of you, rather than expressing your won convictions. You accepted what you were told, and you learned to worship the "one-over-one" hierarchy system, where contacting anyone beyond your immediate boss was gross heresy."

...

The intellectual comedy arises from the drive which causes the organization man to try top impress others, to conform to the pattern, top achieve status symbols, to be anything but his own spontaneous self.

Actually, what whistleblowers and honest man that did appear in this story suffered as much or more than any of the "Unlucky Seven". And many apparently guilty stayed in power after a deep investigation that included a lot of lie detector tests.

Dr. Gardner C. Means ... asks the question, "Just what is private about an enterprise that organizes a quarter of a million workers into a great productive unit using the capital of more than a quarter of a million stockholders and serving millions of ultimate customers? Is it any more private than, say, the government of New York State?"

GE led an industry-wide price-fixing racket for over half a century.

These authors call for, among other things:

The stiffening of the penalties for the violation of present antitrust laws.

The requiring of public justification for price increases on the part of the concentrated industries.

The equitable divestiture of corporations which have become so powerful that they threaten to eliminate free competition.

Too big to fail?

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