The Logic and Morality of Different Entrepreneurs During the Industrial Revolution

As extremely wealthy entrepreneurs amassed large sums of cash through their trusts and companies between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, a lot of corruption and unethical practices occurred throughout many industries. As we learned watching the documentaries in-class, corporation owners such as Andrew Carnegie would use insider-information about the future activities of different companies in order to create a successful monopoly in their industry, through learning about the future business decisions of companies before the general public. Meanwhile, other entrepreneurs like John Rockefeller would create large, overbearing monopolies through either buying out or crushing different businesses in order to control an entire industry. However, at the time, neither of these things were explicitly outlawed in the country, which made their actions completely justifiable from an economic standpoint. Yet, even though this was the case, were these unethical practices justifiable on a moral level? After all, these large, entrepreneurial giants were using the work of millions of Americans who had poor living and working conditions just to make their business profitable. Also, they took advantage of a poorly made system in order to boost their sales and aid their companies. Well, even though these unethical practices might not have been able to be justified morally correct at the time, in my opinion, there were some overall benefits from this corruption, as they inevitably created a government solution for the problem so that it could not arise again. After all, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 in order to prevent trusts like Rockefeller's from developing again, and they began to take tighter control over different industries through enforcing this law (and many others) so that these unequal opportunities wouldn't become such a big issue again. Also, even though this extreme work was degrading for a good portion of Americans, it did speed up our nation's industrial revolution to the point where we could compete, and even dominate other modern nations economically. So, even though the actions of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and other large entrepreneurs could be considered immoral, they did make logical sense economically, and they inevitably boosted the nation's economy as well as its industries (through the developments of new products for consumers). However, a big underlying question exists with this topic, which is that just because these economic giants helped the country so much, were these contributions outweighed by the immorality of their actions? Or were the benefits of these corporations so great that they could void the entire issue of morals all together?