The True Gospel of Wealth: Andrew Carnegie.

U. S History September 17,2012 The True Gospel of Wealth: Andrew Carnegie The True Gospel of Wealth, an article written by one of the richest, most powerful men of the 19th century, is a guide to a nation virgin to mass amounts of wealth, and power. Carnegie is a self made millionaire, who immigrated to the United States with less than a dollar in his pocket. This fact would serve important in Carnegies epic rise to fortune, also in developing such philosophical understandings as, The True Gospel of Wealth. Andrew Carnegie was a firm believer in idea of individualism.

That everyman must work and rise on his own ambition alone, that each man for themselves. In other word, he did not believe in the communist thought of working for the wealth of your brotherhood. Carnegie describes it as evolution of the human class. That it is beyond human control to determine the distribution of wealth. It is good for a nation to have, one end the wealthy, while on the other side, the poor. In this, our nation has grown to know a higher grade of living than what our forefathers experienced. Carnegie goes on to say, “The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford.

What were the luxuries have become the necessities of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the farmer had a few generations ago. ” This passage explains Carnegie’s idea that as the rich get richer, the poorer ultimately reap the benefits of this evolutionary growth of class. This, in fact, depended entirely upon the mode of distribution of wealth the rich man chooses. Moreover, Carnegie explains that there are three different modes of distribution a rich man can employ. The first mode described, a bestowment of fortune to the first son. Which was a common practice during many years f a stringent class system in Great Britain. This ultimately led to a burden of wealth amongst rich who have no conscientiousness of how critical proper distribution of wealth is for evolutionary growth. The second mode, which Carnegie describes as the worst possible thing a man can do in his life, is distributing wealth, cash over fist to the impoverished. To simply give money as “charity” to a man who has none, is to only feed into his follies as a man. Carnegie believes that in an every 1,000 dollars given to charity, 950 dollars of it goes to waste.

The rich man who simply hands money away in small sums to others themselves only stalls the growth of character and ambition throughout the Nation. Nonetheless, the third mode is which Carnegie beckons as the start of a great evolutional growth in the distribution of wealth amongst classes. Carnegie believes that the rich must supply the poor with not money directly to their pockets, which would coax temptations. Rather, the rich must supply the less fortunate with the means to grow as people, to heighten ambitions, and raise the level of class.

This is done through, for example, the construction of a public library. Carnegie, in fact, tells a tale of Mr. Tilden. Mr. Tilden, a wealthy man, builds a large public library in New York City. This distributes more than a couple quarters could ever, the ability for any man to enhance his learning and opportunities for free. In result, Carnegie has lead us as a young nation on the brink of unthinkable upsurge of wealth, power, and respect from around the world to a place of great thought. In this individualistic ideal of life, Carnegie believes we can grow exponentially as a people under the right circumstances.

A system of distribution, and a system of support meant to reach the lowest of the impoverished. A system, nonetheless, that requires a strict set of laws. Best described by Andrew Carnegie himself. “Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to e solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor… but administering (wealth) for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. ”