Comparison Of Andrew Carnegie And Samuel Gomper In The Gospel Of Wealth

“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” This is a famous quote from Carnegie, expressing his attitude towards wealth. Back in Carnegie’s time, property was an issue to the majority of people and thus was considered important; however, when Galbraith wrote his essay, poverty became a minor social issue and received less political attention. Their different historical background and perspective result in different opinions on wealth and poverty. Galbraith would criticize Carnegie’s idea of the Law of Competition, ways to aid, and responsibility and ability of helping the poor.

More importantly, Galbraith holds a different view on the duty and ability to aid from Carnegie. Carnegie supports policies which “induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have the view” (Carnegie 490). He encourages rich people to distribute his wealth to help the poor during their lifetimes, which shows that it is the rich’s responsibility to administrate wealth in a society. More than duty, Carnegie believes that only the rich has the ability to efficiently administrate wealth. He condemns the way of distributing wealth after the rich man is dead since it is not efficient in that “it requires the exercise of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth

A well-known writer, Mark Twain, used the term “Gilded Age” to symbolize the corruption of the American society despite its glittering surface of wealth following the American Civil War. Many industrial leaders following the war were criticized as “Robber Barons” -- the idea of becoming rich through unethical business practices -- or “industrial statesmen” for their economic influence in America. Their tactics of becoming wealthy and prosperous were often criticized as dictating the rich and the poor and destroying competitions, but the philanthropic contributions of these “industrial statesmen” toward the American economy and society are tremendous in creating America as a domination of power. According to many people, these “industrial

Andrew Carnegie could have let his employees keep their wages and worry about donations later. Taking money away to invest it somewhere else is not helping, because the people

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.

Andrew Carnegie makes it clear that people in society with wealth should help those who deserve the financial help. If those in need of help put in their effort, then why shouldn’t they be helped by those who don’t need it? In the Life of the Average Coal Miner, the harsh conditions that children faced is revealed. Children would work for hours in a crucial and dangerous environment and be rewarded with very little money that did not equal to the amount of work they put in. It is unfair to those who worked in the conditions in the Life of the Average Coal Miner.

Foremost, "Wealth" written in 1889, by Andrew Carnegie, and “The Life of a Coal Miner” by John McDowell in 1992, both writers have poles apart perspective on social status and on how the economy works; share almost hardly to no comparisons in their philosophy. Carnegie 's views lay on the one base thought that no matter someone’s background they can make success for themselves, while the coal miner essay challenges that by stating “It is an endless routine of dull plodding world from nine years until death—a sort of voluntary life imprisonment. Few escape. Once they begin, they continue to live out their commonplace, low leveled existence, ignoring their daily danger, knowing nothing better.” In the past quote, he explains how the poor are always

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.

Likewise, many wealthy people, including big business leaders, came to realize that it was their role in society was to give back. Due to all the negative responses, people such as Andrew Carnegie were huge philanthropists . They stated that because they were wealthy and were better inclined than most, they should be willing to help those at the bottom. Andrew Carnegie’s, Gospel of Wealth, explicitly stated how the wealthy have a moral obligation to give back (Outside Evidence). Other major responses to changes and the impact of big business were responses from the government.

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”).

In a brief introduction, the 19th century was marked by the development of scientific knowledge. The search for new technologies, leveraged by the Industrial Revolution, caused scholars to multiply in various areas of knowledge. At that time, various academies and associations geared for the "progress of science" recognized the figure of scientists and put them as important agents of social transformation. In 1889, with the publication of the book "The Gospel of Wealth", Andrew Carnegie comes to the classical approach of social responsibility of the large companies.

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.

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”.

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

“There is something profoundly wrong wrong when one family own more wealth the bottom 130 million Americans.” The United States of America has always had economic growth problems. Income Inequality is a big factor for this situation. We are currently in the 21st century and yet we have no improvement on income inequality. In 1984 by George Orwell the low income are the proles who are the incredulous of the story.