Apparts – Andrew Carnegie Explains the Gospel of Wealth Essay Example
Prior Knowledge: Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, entrepreneur and a major philanthropist. Carnegie was born in Scotland, and migrated to the United States as a child with his parents. His first job in the United States was as a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Later on he became a bill logger for the owner of the company. Soon after, he became a messenger boy. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of a telegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged with Elbert H.
Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U. S. Steel. With the fortune he made from business among others he built Carnegie Hall, later he turned to philanthropy and interests in education, such as finding the Carnegie Corporation of New York and other educational institutions named after him. Carneg
...ie donated most of his money to establish many libraries, schools, and universities in America, the United Kingdom and other countries, as well as a pension fund for former employees.
He is often regarded as the second-richest man in history after John D. Rockefeller. Audience: Carnegie’s view on wealth was expressed to mainly those who were wealthy organizations or individuals that could have been using their financial advantages in charitable and philanthropic ways to better humanity. Reason: Carnegie based his philosophy on the observation that the heirs of large fortunes frequently squandered them in riotous living rather than nurturing and growing them.
The Main Idea: The central thesis of Carnegie's essay was the peril of allowing large sums of money to be passed into the hands of persons or organizations ill-equipped mentally or emotionally to cope with
them. As a result, the wealthy entrepreneur must assume the responsibility of distributing his fortune in a way that it will be put to good use, and not wasted on frivolous expenditure. In Wealth, Carnegie examines the modes of distributing accumulated wealth and capital to the communities it originates from.
He preached that ostentatious living and amassing private treasures was wrong. Carnegie made it clear that the rich were best suited for the recirculation of their money back into society where it could be used to support the greater good, given that they are presumed to have a penchant for management of capital. This led to Carnegie using one of his most famous quotes: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. ”
Significance: Even giving one's fortune to charity was no guarantee that it would be used wisely, since there was no guarantee that a charitable organization not under one's direction would use the money in accordance with one's wishes. Carnegie disapproved of charitable giving that merely maintained the poor in their impoverished state, and urged a movement toward the creation of a new mode of giving which would create opportunities for the beneficiaries of the gift to better themselves. As a result, the gift would not be merely consumed, but would be productive of even greater wealth throughout the society.
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