A Robber Baron Saved the Whales

By Walter Williams

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer 1997]

Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, and father of modern economics, said about people in general and businessmen in particular, "By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." That's a lesson lost in today's rhetoric of "giving something back" and "feeling another's pain."

High school and college students are routinely fed leftist propaganda about businessmen's greed. Quite often, the lesson begins with one of the "robber barons," such as John D. Rockefeller. But Rockefeller should be celebrated, at least by the farthest left of the left, the animal rights advocates. Here's the story.

America was once the world's leading whaling nation. According to James S. Robbin's article, "How Capitalism Saved the Whales," in the October 1992 issue of The Freeman, we had 735 whaling ships in 1846, doing 80% of the world's whaling. In the first two decades of the 19th century, whalers killed an average of 15,000 whales annually, to produce 4 million to 5 million gallons of sperm-whale oil, 6 million to 10 million gallons of train oil, and 1.6 million to 5.6 million pounds of bone. These products lighted lamps and provided soaps, pain lubrication, candles, perfume, corset stays, buggy whips and other useful products.

When whaling finally stopped at the turn of the 20th century, there were an estimated 50,000 whales left. Surely, if an average annual kill of 15,000 whales a year had continued, whales would now be extinct. What saved the whales? Was it a triumph by Greenpeace or early animal rights advocates? If you say yes, then put on the dunce cap.

Whales were saved by the self-interested motives of the much-maligned "robber baron" John D. Rockefeller. The first step was made by Dr. Abraham Gesner, a Canadian geologist. In 1849, he devised a method whereby kerosene could be distilled from petroleum, but it took Rockefeller to make kerosene production a commercial success. With his partner, Samuel Adams, Rockefeller set up a network of kerosene distilleries, that would later become known as Standard Oil.

As kerosene became cheaper and more available throughout the nation, our whaling fleet fell from 735 in 1846 to 39 in 1876. The last American whaling ship left port in 1924 and grounded on Cuttyhunk Island the next day. Spring steel came to replace whalebone in corsets, automobiles replaced carriages, and the demand for whalebone buggy whips and wagon suspensions collapsed. In 1879, Thomas Edison began marketing the incandescent bulb. As our country became electrified, both whale oil and kerosene were driven from the illumination market.

You may say, "Rockefeller didn't mean to confer these benefits, so it doesn't count!" If one takes that position, nothing counts. After all, we all have cars, houses and food, which I think is wonderful. But I doubt that producers of these goods labored for our benefit because they cared about us. That brings up another Adam Smith quotation, "I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good." In other words, most good done in the world is done by people pursuing their own narrow, selfish interests. Ironically, most world evil is done in the name of good.

-- Walter Williams is Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) and author of The State Against Blacks (McGraw-Hill) and, most recently, Do The Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks (Hoover Press).

Copyright © 1997 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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