Gospel of Wealth or Justification

Gospel of Wealth or Justification for Poverty

Just interest on huge scale enterprises is always a substantial return, if a man does not earn this much the business is bankrupt. Men who are extremely skilled in managing in large scale should be pain handsomely for their skill. To Carnegie the fact that there would be a few who rose to such heights as to earn more money than they could spend in their own lifetime is not only inevitable it is a sign of the times and a demonstration of both the success of capitalism and society and be offered the opportunity to learn and be creative. According to Carnegie's acceptance of the concept of Social Darwinism, the combining of a free market society and survival of the fittest, (Norton et. al. 487) he believed that;

"It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affairs, under the free play of economic forces must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others...." (52)

Without men in society who had exorbitant amounts of money there would be no patrons of the arts and no places where the masses could meet to celebrate the victories of society, i.e. material and manufacture success.

To further this idea and to reassert the moral obligation of those who amass great wealth due to their natural "talents" Carnegie stresses the need for these individuals to, while living use the same "talents" by which they amassed their wealth to dispense of it for the greater good.

"There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered by its possessors during their lives." (53) Carnegie goes on to repudiate the first and last modes of spending one's massive fortune, noting that he is not speaking of a small and modest wealth associated with many years of saving and toil he is talking about grand scale wealth that amount to more than a family could ever spend in a lifetime. Giving all your money to your descendants he claims is foolhardy because they will likely squander it because they do not likely possess the skill to earn it on their own and if they do they will do so. Additionally, doing everything you can to spend it in your lifetime on trifles is foolhardy as it will only benefit your family and the few merchants you buy goods from. His suggestion is then to offer the bulk of your wealth, once your family is modestly secure, to charities that will serve the masses so that from this bequest those who have the skills to better society (the skillful managers of massive scale) will be offered the opportunity to rise up and repeat the cycle and again better society in the next generation.