Benjamin Franklin Synthesis

Over the past two centuries, Benjamin Franklin has become the businessman known for being “self-made.” That is to say our modern understanding of Franklin is that of a man who invented his own name and fortune alongside the invention that was, and is, the United States. Just as the meaning of the United States has been transformed by years of misinterpretations, exaggerations, and even lies, the story of Benjamin Franklin has been waxed and shined by centuries of American industry. Although not completely inaccurate, the story we are left with today, that Franklin was a quintessential example of what it means to be “self-made,” happens to resonate very differently among those who are well-informed about his life, and those who only know the

As a founding father, and one of the first famous Americans, Benjamin Franklin’s illustrious title of “self-made man” rests well within and without United States. Although Franklin well deserves this fame, long passed down in a digestible title that seems to describe him just as much as it describes the foundation of America, it is important to understand how these two stories, albeit similar in many ways, do, in fact, differ. The American tale was initially that of religious sects finding safe haven on the shores of New World, or in other words, freedom to practice religion. But as populations increased, it was inevitable that America would come to be defined by the availability of profits and goods, also known as economic freedom. Franklin happened to break ground for his career at the very time this second phase of the American story took place. With his astronomically popular businesses, inventions, and political successes, Benjamin Franklin would naturally be associated with the profit-driven country he helped create. But although Benjamin Franklin was one of the first great American businessmen, and was a so-called “self-made” man, the rags to riches story that has been passed down is an inaccurate telling of a life devoted very much to principles and ideas, not money and

Franklin would not write “The Way To Wealth” until 1758, well over two decades after he started the majority of his business ventures. Furthermore, Franklin journaled his thirteen virtues in 1784, over half a century after he became a businessman. Franklin never claims that either publication would set the reader on track to become the Benjamin of his youth. In fact when he prefaced his virtues in 1784, he explained that “it was about (that) time that (he) conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection” (148). Was having thirteen virtues a necessary condition for being the Franklin businessman, Benjamin Franklin would have been long-dead before his enterprises brought him the profits for which he became known. Franklin’s thirteen virtues were a mental exercise for the aging intellectual. Similarly, when Franklin wrote “The Way To Wealth,” he was in no way retelling his own story. At the time, he was just starting his career in politics. It is more likely than not that Benjamin Franklin’s real motive for writing “The Way To Wealth” was to test his hand at writing political doctrine. He pretends to address the work to a poor, common-folk class. Additionally, he walks through inductive reasoning for why one