Andrew Carnegie\'s \"Gospel of Wealth\"

Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth"

Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born American millionaire (billionaire many times over if his wealth were adjusted for inflation) had many unusual ides about wealth and the proper way to handle business, money, and even people. According to his 1889 "Gospel of Wealth," there are only three things that can be done with accumulated wealth: it can be left to family after the wealthy person dies; it can be donated to charity, again after the person holding the wealth dies; or it can distributed during the wealthy person's life time. After detailing why the first two options are not ideal for either the individuals involved or society at large -- inherited wealth is detrimental to the inheritor's character, claims Carnegie, and leaving money to charity after death limits its usefulness because there is no accountability, and because its use is delayed for so long -- Carnegie goes on to extol and explain the virtues of the third option, that of giving the money back to society during the wealthy person's lifetime. Carnegie took his own advice. Creating libraries and many other foundations. Yet conspicuously missing from his "Gospel of Wealth" is an explanation of how to attain the growth of wealth.

Though Carnegie makes a solid argument for his position on how wealth should be spent and distributed back to society, he does not provide any explanation for how economic growth can be attained. That is, though he suggests a good use for wealth and makes it clear why the option he advocates is the best one, he does not mention how to go about generating wealth in the first place. Obviously, this wealth would have to exist in order for it to be spent the way Carnegie suggests it should be. It is well and good for him to give away his fortune, and suggest that others do the same, but it is quite another thing for the many people that do not have that fortune to begin with to spend all of their money during their lifetime -- it does not provide for any advancement.

Leaving large sums of money to descendants might not be a wise idea, but if more middle-class or poorer families do not leave their children anything, it can keep them from getting a leg up and possibly bettering their own lives. This would perpetuate the class and socio-economic status of that hereditary line, and thus not enable these people to obtain the sort of wealth that Carnegie had and was talking about in his gospel. This is very related to the idea of economic growth; without putting a substantial amount of capital back into industry, there would be no economic growth. Carnegie states in his gospel that the goal of spending during one's lifetime is to enrich the poorer people and enable them to obtain better lives and standards of living. If there is no economic growth, then there won't be any well-paying jobs for these people to take advantage of. Carnegie addresses many of the philosophical, ethical, and moral issues involved with the accumulation and distribution of wealth, but despite his obviously apparent expertise in business, his gospel is quite short on practicality.