How Did Andrew Carnegie Wrote 'Wealth'?

Beginning as a poor immigrant, Carnegie wanted to support the lower and uneducated class: he knew how it felt to have an ambiguous and undetermined future. In "The Gospel of Wealth" Carnegie said,

In his early life, he didn’t have a lot of money. He was a story of rags to riches. Carnegie learned the value of hard work from his mother. He stopped going to school at the age of 13 because his mother made him and his brother move to America.

The response to poverty in the Gilded Age was the rich and the poor not being able to come to an agreement in response to those who can hardly make ends meet. Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men during the Gilded Age. Carnegie was not the best man to work for because he was against labor unions and approved using violence against his own employees. In “Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth” It talks about how the rich and the poor could come together if they had the “proper administration of wealth.” Carnegie thought it was better to build institutions instead of give to the poor because the strength of the mind and body will benefit the community while solving the problem between the rich and the poor.

Wealth and Power in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries The lifestyles of the rich in the late 19th and early 20th centuries illustrate that money is earned through hard work, determination, and benevolence. Such wealthy men as Andrew Carnegie prove that personal affluence could benefit the community. The man was a captain of industry and without the likes of him; the country could not be a high industrial power as it is today. Carnegie was born in a one-room cottage in Scotland, but his perseverance, acumen, and contribution to the steel industry made him a notable philanthropist and one of the wealthiest Americans.

In the 1935 radio address titled Share the Wealth given by Huey Long, Long laid out his political ideology to promote the greater good of society or the common good. During the year of 1935, Huey Long was suiting up for a presidential run against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so therefore, he criticized Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and then proceeded to lay out his own solution. Long’s solution included six principles which were; first, every family will own a home that is worth more than or equal to one third of the average family wealth. Second, every family will own no more than three hundred times the average family wealth and no less than one third of the average family wealth. Third, every family will have an income equal to at least one third of the average family income and no more than three hundred times the average less than the ordinary income taxes.

“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.

Andrew Carnegie, the richest American of his era, wrote a document named Wealth in 1889. In this document, Andrew Carnegie addressed the well-educated and richest businessmen of society of that point in time. As the leading industrialist, Andrew Carnegie knew about industrial workers issues and hardship they faced for not being able to afford for their families. In this document he is suggesting that wealthy businessmen use their wealth to serve the common man.

The distribution of wealth has always been a conflict of interest between those in an industrial society. Many times, we find the all the poor being grouped as oppressed, and all the rich being grouped as oppressive. But this is not the most accurate way of thinking. We see Andrew Carnegie as part of the rich being grouped as oppressive, or a villain. Given the fact that he saw his success in the height of the American Era of Industrialization, Carnegie got a lot of backlash for the issues surrounding the poor that worked for him.

To say the time period following the Civil War in the United States involved a lot of change would be a understatement. Between the years 1870 and 1900 the people of the United States lived through a period of great change. Not only did they witness technological advances that would change their daily lives, they also saw new laws and organizations formed. All of this was done in hopes of improving the country. Many of these changes came about because of the type of businesses that were formed.

The late nineteenth century was a pivotal moment in American history. During this time, the Industrial Revolution transformed the nation, railroads had dissipated all throughout the country, and economic classes began to form, separating the wealthy from the poor. One of the wealthiest men of this generation was Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who fled to America to make millions off the railroad, oil and even steel businesses. Carnegie is considered one of the richest men in history, and even with all that wealth he decided to give back to the community. As a matter of fact, Carnegie donated most of his funds to charities, universities and libraries in his last few years.

Justification of this is seen in Document 3, as Andrew Carnegie writes, “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmony.” Surely, a manipulative man would not believe in such fair distribution of wealth. Carnegie is also famous for large charitable donations, meaning his business methods were not enacted solely for his own benefit. This statement highlights Carnegie’s compassionate side and proves that he is not completely a “robber baron.” Similarly to Carnegie, Rockefeller’s compassionate side is also portrayed in Document 7.

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.

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”).

During the late 19th century, there was a growth in industrialization. This brought new opportunities for the poor and the rich. For example, Carnegie helped build the steel industry in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, which made him one of the richest man in the world. As Carnegie gained more wealth, he questioned who money should be given to. Carnegie was both a Robber Baron and a Captain of Industry.

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”.