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How Did Andrew Carnegie's View Of Wealth

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"The golden gleam of the gilded surface hides the cheapness of the metal underneath.” This remark by Mark Twain, an renown social commentator, sums up the corruption that concerned many during the 19th century (“Exhibitions”). It is estimated that one percent of the population had possession of 88 percent of the nation’s assets (Brinkley 477). Many felt their rights as a citizen of a republic were endangered because so few people controlled such power and money (Brinkley 472). People were concerned that the robber barons were using that power to control the prices to their own personal benefit (Brinkley 476). This caused unrest among the populace (Brinkley 477). In contrast, the wealthy viewed industrialization very positively (Brinkley 472-473). Andrew Carnegie, one of these millionaires, had a singular view on wealth, and his philosophy both stemmed from and influenced his actions during his life. Carnegie’s view of rampant capitalism and the class separation it caused was radically different from most the population. In his book The Gospel of Wealth, he wrote, “much better this great irregularity than universal squalor” (Carnegie 2). He said industrialization was advantageous because it created superior products that enriched the lives of the impoverished as well as the wealthy …show more content…

Morgan, and became a philanthropist (“Andrew Carnegie Biography”). His decisions in how to go about his philanthropy were influenced by his own experiences. While Carnegie didn’t spend much time in a formal classroom, he learned to read and gained knowledge from books (“Andrew Carnegie Biography”). Because of this, Carnegie saw books as the key to helping communities.“Those worthy of assistance … seldom require assistance,” he said (Carnegie 17). With this in mind, he funded libraries, so people could advance themselves. His money built 1,689 public libraries, many of which are still open and helping communities today

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Robber barons, specifically Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and John D. Rockefeller, a philanthropist, were the chosen, elite members of society according to the doctrine of Social Darwinism. Darwinism is when evolution occurs and the strongest organisms of an ecosystem survive and reproduce to outnumber the weaker, less fit organisms of an ecosystem. Similarly Social Darwinism follows the same concept, but in a capitalist sense of thought. Those who were able to exploit the Gilded Age’s laissez faire economy to their own benefit, like the robber barons Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel and J. D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, were the fittest members of society because they were able to survive in the grueling and ruthless free economy. By usurping all of the fresh yet unfit immigrants that were flowing into the States due to the rise of urbanization, these two men integrated these easily-manipulated people into their factories to augment their profits.

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The captains of industry believed that the poor people were inferior to the rich people. The rich were superior because they had “wisdom, experience, and the ability to administer”. The duty of a rich person was to help out a poor person which was what was said in the Gospel of Wealth. The Gospel of Wealth is about how the rich person's responsibility is philanthropy. Carnegie believes in charity work so he would donate to libraries, and universities and schools and etc.

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At the end of the 19th Century, as the United States was experiencing rapid industrialization, a reconfiguration of the social order yielded opposing visions of social progress. Andrew Carnegie, wealthy businessman, and Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House, put forward different methods to achieve such progress, where Addams focuses on creating social capital in a seemingly horizontal manner while Carnegie advocates for a top-down approach. While both of them seem to reap a sense of purpose from their attempts to improve the nation, their approaches vary depending on their vision of the composition of the population they want to uplift. First, Carnegie and Addams’ desire to improve society is partly self-serving. For Carnegie, improving society is the role of the wealthy man who, “animated by Christ’s spirit” (“Wealth”), can administer wealth for the community better than it could have for itself (“Wealth”).

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During the Gilded Age, Andrew Carnegie became a wealthy man due to his control over the manufacturing and distribution of steel. The Carnegie Steel Company and its use of vertical and horizontal integration allowed Carnegie to control the production and distribution of his steel, which made him into a wealthy industrialist (The New Tycoons 2014). In his article “Wealth”, Andrew Carnegie argues for the wealthy to give back their wealth to the community by providing “public institutions of various kinds … [to] improve the general condition of the people” (Foner 30). He uses this article to promote his Gospel of Wealth idea and provide his interpretation of the changing American society. Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth stated that “those who accumulated

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Andrew Carnegie created the worlds largest and most profitable steel company making him one of the wealthiest men in the world. Carnegie believed that certain people had the ability do certain things and you must overcome obstacles to do the impossible. Meaning if you have the money and means you are more fit than others. He justified his wealth as benefiting society and promoting civilization.

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Document 4 states that all wealthy men have given enough importance to the middle class, that they even have established jobs for them. Well I say that Andrew Carnegie believed in social Darwinism and therefore would not do anything to justify his richness and to help the less privileged. His steel production may have opened up new job opportunities but the jobs were a living hell and so I say that the working conditions for workers in the U.S. were horrible and Andrew Carnegie only supported himself and wanted to look good so he offered jobs in his factory, which were bad.

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There had to be a way to keep the industry growing, with the needs for education, as well as materials for farming and for the use of new inventions in technology. The captains of industry were very capable in providing for these needs. In Document C, Wealth, Andrew Carnegie describes what the man of wealth was responsible for: “To produce the most beneficial results for the community- Bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.” The conditions of the lower class at the time gave these men a leading role for priorities, which they were successful with.

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Andrew Carnegie was the founder of the largest steel company. Carnegie grew in a poor community but then migrated to Western Pennsylvania just to completely make a change in his life and later on being recognized as one of the wealthiest people in that era. In Carnegie’s testimonial, The Gospel of Wealth, we can observe his way of thinking in regards of the benefits farmers got from the rich people. Carnegie said that “Today the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the preceding generation would have deemed incredible…” (Carnegie). He explained that there is no reason for others to criticize the privileges rich people get in comparison to those farmers get being that, farmers and poor people have now better opportunities than they had before, “The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford.

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Both of them advocated that the wealth that was collected after industrialization should be used to help the poor in the society. The two historians had contrasting attitudes on how those who failed to benefit from industrialization from those who had accumulated wealth as a result of industrialization. For example, according to Andrew Carnegie advocated for the gospel of wealth and set an example by donating $ 300 million back to the society. Andrew believed that the wealth accumulated after industrialization should be taken back to the society. Andrew and Eugen differed on how the poor should be helped.

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And highlighting the period of wealth of the American upper class along with the rise of American philanthropy, was Andrew Carnegie who referred to his article as the “Gospel of Wealth”. This is why “The Gospel of Wealth” is an important theme of the class. Many new corporations and businesses gave rise to ultra-rich individuals during this time. Carnegie proposed that the best way

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790 Words | 4 Pages

Andrew Carnegie wanted to create a capitalist system, which involved the lower class working underneath of the wealthy, who would then give their surplus of wealth to society The duty of the wealthy is to set an example of modesty among the wealthy, to provide for the needs of those that depend on him and to lend money to his fellow man to give back to the community. The man of wealths duties as carnegie explained in paragraph nine is to “provide the poor a trustee and a sole agent that provides them with wisdom experience and doing for them better than they would do or could do for themselves.” ( Carnegie, paragraph nine). THis system would give the wealthy many responsibilities, but Carnegie believed it was their duty to help others when they were unable to help

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Underpinnings and Effectiveness of Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” In Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth”, Carnegie proposed a system of which he thought was best to dispose of “surplus wealth” through progress of the nation. Carnegie wanted to create opportunities for people “lift themselves up” rather than directly give money to these people. This was because he considered that giving money to these people would be “improper spending”.

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One of the many Gospel of Wealth advocates was Andrew Carnegie, 1835-1919, who was an industrialist who emigrated from Scotland to American in 1848 (Wall, ANBO). Carnegie’s “Wealth” written in 1889

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He believed that if the wealthy don't give back some of their profits to the community, they are living a dishonorable life, and although I didn't necessarily agree with this radical viewpoint at first, I now am a firm believer in Carnegie's argument about wealth.

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663 Words | 3 Pages

Industrialists capitalized on plentiful, low cost labor to become extremely wealthy but became known as ‘robber barons’ because industrialists extracted wealth at the expense of those producing the output. Industrialists argued America’s economy would never have attained the heights achieved without them. Jay Gould rhetorically asked where America would be without corporations that developed

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