Wealth Against Commonwealth (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Lloyd’s 1881 exposé of the Standard Oil Company in the Atlantic Monthly forms the core of Wealth Against Commonwealth, a full-length indictment of John D. Rockefeller and his oil company—calling them prototypes of the industrial monopolies he felt were corrupting American liberty. Appealing to the intellectual elite of America, Lloyd converted his audience to a loose yet determined ideology of democratic brotherhood.