Chapter 438
Instead of answering, Grace Rothschild asked me a question.
“President Heo Chang-min is afraid of you. To be precise, he’s afraid that political power will be neutralized by capital power. What president wouldn’t be? The politicians in Korea want you to move OTK Company's corporate registration to Korea. That way, the political establishment can impose sanctions on you. Have you ever thought about what the future holds for OTK Company?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“John Davison Rockefeller dedicated his life to building his company. He didn't accumulate his wealth through illegal means; at the time, monopolies were perfectly legal. But the United States created a new law, the antitrust act, and his company was forcibly broken up. Is there any guarantee the same won’t happen to OTK Company?”
Today, IT giants like Npple, Gooble, MS, and AMZ vie for the top spot in market capitalization, but just a decade ago, that position was held by Exxon Mobil.
And the predecessor of Exxon Mobil was Standard Oil, founded by John Davison Rockefeller. Energy is the bedrock of a nation, yet the entire market was controlled by a single man and a single company.
To stop this, the U.S. government created the Sherman Act, also known as the antitrust law.
Rockefeller protested, but Standard Oil was forcibly dismantled and broken up into dozens of smaller companies. In essence, they created a law for one man and applied it to that one man.
She asked me, “Does any other unlisted company of OTK Company’s scale exist in the world?”