Galbraith's The Gospel Of Wealth

John Kenneth Galbraith certainly read Andrew Carnegie's “The Gospel of Wealth” but it is highly doubtful that he agreed with the renown robber baron turned philanthropist. Galbraith would have found Carnegie's method and mindset for bridging the gap between the wealthy and the poor callous and somewhat brutal. Galbraith believed the best way to break the cycle of poverty was by providing poor children with better food, clothing and education. He advocated a minimum income for each family. Carnegie regarded poverty as a character flaw and thought the main goal of charity is to help those who help themselves. He believed the best way to help a community shake off the shackles of poverty was to construct places of learning for people to edify

Carnegie thought it was the responsibility of a wealthy man to disburse his wealth before he died so he could insure how the money was directed. He sternly disapproved of men who leave great fortunes to their children. He thought beneficiaries should be moderately seen to, but not receive all the inheritance. Furthermore, he believed that a man who left his wealth to be dispersed after he died to be particularly cowardly. Rather, he thought that wealthy men had a responsibility to determine how the money they made was spent. Carnegie himself became a huge philanthropist and his essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” started a large wave of philanthropy. His essay states that the “surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves.” In short, he did not believe that money should be handed to the poor as it would encourage “the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy.” Instead, Carnegie believed that the wealthy men should place certain ladders where those hoping to better themselves can rise – “parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art”

He was aware of Carnegie's theory that the “only sound was to solve the problem of poverty is to help people help themselves” but he would not have seen poverty as the character flaw that Carnegie did. He did not think that poverty needed to be self-perpetuated and by helping the children get better educations helped break the cycle of poverty. He also believed that “poverty is self-perpetuating partly because the poorest communities are poorest in the services which would eliminate”