I am currently reading a couple of books. The first is “Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son”. These were written in the years around 1900 when Rockefeller was probably the richest person in the world.
He built Standard Oil into a virtual monopoly in oil production, refining and storage and also owned major parts of the US rail transportation industry. If you wish to learn how to build an industrial monopoly this is a good book to read. Taking over weaker competitors is one tactic to follow.
There are a couple of good letters on the benefit of borrowing money to finance expansion (so long as you never default on the loans), and what you can gain from business failures. As one letter says “Failure is a good thing as long as it does not become a habit”. But you can gain much from failures. He says “Once avoiding failure becomes your motivation to do things, you have embarked on a path of laziness and powerlessness”.
This is a good paragraph: “If you are afraid of failure, you will not dare to take risks and then lose the opportunities that are placed right in front of you. Therefore, my son, in order to avoid losing opportunities and retain your qualifications for competition, it is worthwhile to pay for our failures and setbacks!”
There is a lot of business wisdom in this book which is as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago. I therefore recommend this book to all budding entrepreneurs.
The books cover photo is of Rockefeller probably wearing a wig. He suffered from alopecia totalis like me so I have always felt some sympathy for him.
The other book I have been reading is “The Summit” by Ed Conway. It is a history of the Bretton Woods conference attended by all the major powers in 1944 which set out the economic framework we have been living in since then. It established a new monetary system and subsequently helped form the United Nations organisation.
A big influence on the outcome was John Maynard Keynes and the book covers his background at some length. You can understand how he came to influence economic policy in many countries.
At 454 pages the book is rather long for my liking but it certainly helps one to understand the influences that have formed the economic and monetary policies of the current world.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson )
You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.
Keynes dominated his fellow economists. I only learned a year or two ago that he was 6 foot seven inches (2 metres) tall, so he had an enormous physical presence to complement his brains.
Yes but as is documented in the book mentioned he was in poor health most of his life. He died in 1946 after a series of heart attacks.