what evidence do you find that carnegie followed his own advice in rising to the top

Originally titled merely "Wealth" and published in theNorth American Review in June 1889, Andrew Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" is considered a foundational certificate in the field of philanthropy. Carnegie believed in giving wealth abroad during one'south lifetime, and this essay includes one of his most famous quotes, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." Carnegie's bulletin continues to resonate with and inspire leaders and philanthropists around the globe.

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"The Gospel of Wealth"

By Andrew Carnegie

The problem of our age is the proper assistants of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious human relationship. The conditions of man life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little deviation between the dwelling house, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are today where civilized human and so was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was only like the others in external appearance, and even inside the difference was trifling betwixt information technology and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the alter which has come with culture. This change, all the same, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be and then. Much better this slap-up irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there tin can be no Mæcenas. The "good former times " were not adept old times. Neither master nor retainer was as well situated then every bit to-day. A relapse to quondam conditions would be disastrous to both—not the least so to him who serves—and would sweep away civilization with it. But whether the change exist for good or ill, it is upon us, across our ability to alter, and therefore to be accepted and fabricated the best of. It is a waste material of time to criticize the inevitable.

It is piece of cake to run into how the change has come. One illustration will serve for almost every phase of the crusade. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, equally stimulated and enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly manufactures were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in modest shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the principal, and therefore field of study to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to exist masters, there was little or no modify in their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was, essentially social equality, and fifty-fifty political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then petty or no political vocalism in the State.

"The poor enjoy what the rich could non before afford. What were the luxuries have go the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations agone."

But the inevitable outcome of such a style of manufacture was crude articles at high prices. Today the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the commercial globe similar causes take produced like results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor bask what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations agone. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and ameliorate housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the Rex could then obtain.

The price we pay for this salutary alter is, no dubiety, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the manufactory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer tin can know little or goose egg, and to whom the employer is little ameliorate than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, every bit usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to information technology. Under the law of contest, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and oftentimes there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Man order loses homogeneity.

The toll which society pays for the police force of competition, like the toll it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the reward of this law are also greater nonetheless, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its railroad train. Only, whether the law be beneficial or non, nosotros must say of it, every bit we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for information technology have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is all-time for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. Nosotros accept and welcome therefore, as conditions to which nosotros must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition betwixt these, as beingness not merely beneficial, but essential for the futurity progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that there must exist great scope for the exercise of special power in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to carry diplomacy upon a bang-up scale. That this talent for system and direction is rare amongst men is proved by the fact that information technology invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in diplomacy always rate the Human whose services can exist obtained as a partner as non only the first consideration, but such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth because, for such men soon create majuscule; while, without the special talent required, upper-case letter before long takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and estimating only simple interest to be fabricated upon the majuscule invested, information technology is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle footing which such men can occupy, considering the corking manufacturing or commercial business organization which does non earn at least interest upon its capital letter soon becomes bankrupt. Information technology must either get forward or autumn behind: to stand even so is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that it should be thus far assisting, and even that, in add-on to interest on capital, it should make profit. Information technology is a constabulary, every bit certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, nether the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can exist judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, considering the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with whatsoever others which take been tried. Of the effect of whatever new substitutes proposed nosotros cannot be sure. The Socialist or Agitator who seeks to overturn present weather condition is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which culture itself rests, for civilization took its commencement from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy boyfriend, "If thou dost non sow, thou shalt not reap," and thus concluded archaic Communism by separating the drones from the bees. Ane who studies this subject will soon exist brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends--the correct of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings banking company, and every bit the legal correct of the millionaire to his millions. To these who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous 24-hour interval to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, merely skilful, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who take the ability and energy that produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that information technology might be meliorate for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism,—that information technology is a nobler ideal that homo should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, realizing Swedenborg'due south thought of Heaven, where, every bit he says, the angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for cocky, but for each other,—even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is, This is non evolution, but revolution. Information technology necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of eons, even if it were good to change it, which nosotros cannot know.

It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable at present; with the next footstep possible in our mean solar day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or peradventure achieve is to curve the universal tree of humanity a footling in the management most favorable to the product of good fruit under existing circumstances. Nosotros might besides urge the destruction of the highest existing type of human because he failed to reach our ideal every bit favor the destruction of Individualism, Individual Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Police force of Contest; for these are the highest results of human being experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the all-time fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the Idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.

Nosotros start, then, with a condition of diplomacy nether which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions every bit they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced proficient. The question then arises,—and, if the foregoing be correct, it is the only question with which we take to deal,—What is the proper style of administering wealth later the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few ? And it is of this great question that I believe I offering the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is non wealth, simply but competence which it should exist the aim of all to learn.

There are but three modes in which surplus wealth tin can be disposed of. Information technology can exist left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the beginning and 2nd modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Allow usa in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the near injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this form in Europe to-mean solar day teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have get impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the value of country. Fifty-fifty in Great United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland the strict constabulary of entail has been found inadequate to maintain the status of an hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the easily of the stranger. Under republican institutions the division of property among the children is much fairer, merely the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, information technology is non well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is information technology well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if whatever, for the sons, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed oftener piece of work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.

It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall bandage them adrift in poverty. If whatsoever human being has seen fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly laudable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in moderation. At that place are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, withal perform great services in the community. Such are the very common salt of the earth, as valuable equally, unfortunately, they are rare; still it is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful homo must shortly say, "I would as soon go out to my son a curse as the almighty dollar," and acknowledge to himself that information technology is non the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.

Equally to the 2nd mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, information technology may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a human is content to await until he is expressionless before information technology becomes of much expert in the world. Knowledge of the results of legacies ancestral is not calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished. The cases are non few in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to get simply monuments of his folly. It is well to remember that it requires the do of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as to be actually beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is to exist extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked past the community to which he only leaves wealth at decease. Men who go out vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not accept left it at all, had they been able to take it with them. The memories of such cannot exist held in grateful remembrance, for there is no grace in their gifts. It is not to exist wondered at that such bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing.

The growing disposition to tax more and more than heavily large estates left at expiry is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes—subject field to some exceptions—1-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the decease-duties; and, most significant of all, the new taxation is to exist a graduated one. Of all forms of tax, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at decease the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire'southward unworthy life.

It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is hard to gear up bounds to the share of a rich man's manor which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the state, and by all ways such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing apace as the amounts corking, until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least

"The other one-half
Comes to the privy coffer of the land."

This policy would piece of work powerfully to induce the rich human being to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the terminate that society should e'er have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people. Nor demand it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the form whose appetite it is to leave great fortunes and exist talked about subsequently their death, it will concenter even more attention, and, indeed, exist a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.

At that place remains, and then, only one way of using nifty fortunes; but in this nosotros have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor—a reign of harmony—another platonic, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring but the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. Information technology is founded upon the present nigh intense individualism, and the race is projected to put it in practice by degree whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall accept an platonic land, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more than potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest tin can be fabricated to encounter this, and to hold that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal do good, are more than valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Establish, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York non possessed of means, and compare these with those which would have arisen for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which is the highest class of distribution, being for piece of work washed and non for charity, nosotros can form some guess of the possibilities for the comeback of the race which lie embedded in the present constabulary of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum if distributed in small quantities amid the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of information technology in backlog, and it may be doubted whether fifty-fifty the part put to the best utilize, that of adding to the comforts of the home, would take yielded results for the race, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to menstruum from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Permit the advocate of violent or radical alter ponder well this thought.

Nosotros might even go and so far as to take another instance, that of Mr. Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a gratis library in the city of New York, simply in referring to this 1 cannot assist saying involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the final years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal competition nor any other cause of delay could take interfered with his aims. Simply permit united states of america assume that Mr. Tilden'due south millions finally get the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the globe independent in books will exist open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit take been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a incertitude upon this subject. Most of those who call back volition probably entertain no doubt whatever.

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; simply rich men should be thankful for one costive benefaction. They take it in their ability during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows volition derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, non by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the inverse conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which nosotros live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, merely laboring in a different manner.

"This, then, is held to exist the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an instance of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance."

This, and then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: Get-go, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing then to consider all surplus revenues which come up to him simply every bit trust funds, which he is called upon to administrate, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the human being of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administrate, doing for them amend than they would or could do for themselves.

Nosotros are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family unit; what is pocket-size, unostentatious living; what is the examination of extravagance. There must be different standards for different conditions. The reply is that it is every bit impossible to proper noun exact amounts or actions every bit it is to define adept manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety; only, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although indefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the instance of wealth. The rule in regard to skilful taste in the apparel of men or women applies here. Whatever makes ane conspicuous offends the canon. If whatever family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, tabular array, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in whatever form upon itself, if these be its primary distinctions, we take no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So besides in regard to the use or corruption of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accrue and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath.

The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely estimate and its judgments volition not often be wrong.

The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put take already been indicated. These who, would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for 1 of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than then spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every g dollars spent in and so called charity to-day, it is likely that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known author of philosophic books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man who approached him equally he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar; knew not the use that would exist made of this coin, although he had every reason to doubtable that it would be spent improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; nevertheless the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the coin which its thoughtless donor will e'er be able to give in true charity volition exercise good. He only gratified his ain feelings, saved himself from annoyance,—and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life, for in all respects he is nearly worthy.

In bestowing clemency, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide function of the ways past which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to utilize the aids past which they may rise; to assist, simply rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of aid, except in rare cases, seldom crave assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in cases of accident or sudden alter. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance tin can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. Simply the amount which can exist wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the merely true reformer who is as conscientious and as broken-hearted not to assistance the unworthy every bit he is to help the worthy, and, perhaps, even more than then, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.

The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to identify within its accomplish the ladders upon which the aspiring can ascension—parks, and means of recreation, past which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which volition improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms all-time calculated to practise them lasting good.

"The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation volition be left costless; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be merely a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a neat part of the increased wealth of the customs, but administering information technology for the community far better than it could or would accept done for itself. The best minds volition thus have reached a stage in the development of the race which information technology is clearly seen that in that location is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose easily it flows save by using it twelvemonth past yr for the full general good. This day already dawns. Just a piddling while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may dice sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot exist or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at decease for public uses, yet the human who dies leaving backside many millions of bachelor wealth, which was his to administer during life, volition pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot accept with him. Of such as these the public verdict volition then exist: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Such, in my stance, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some mean solar day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men good will."

---

This essay was originally published in the North American Review (equally "Wealth"), Vol. CXLVIII, June 1889. It was reprinted in Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, ed. Andrew C. Kirkland (Cambridge, Mass.: 1962).

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Source: https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/

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