Carnegie Speaks: A Recording of the Gospel of Wealth was written by Andrew Carnegie.
Andrew Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" was originally titled simply "Wealth" and was published in the North American Review in June 1889.Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during his lifetime, and one of his most famous quotes is, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."
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 harmonious relationship.Within the past few hundred years, the conditions of human life have been changed.The environment of the chief and his retainers were the same in the past.civilized man was where the Indians are today.I was led to the wigwam of the chief.It was the same as the others, but the difference was that of the poor of his braves.The change which has come with civilization is measured by the contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of laborers with us today.The change is welcomed as highly beneficial.It is essential for the progress of the race that the houses of some people should be homes for people who are the best in literature and the arts.This irregularity is better than universal squalor.Without wealth there is no Mcenas.The "good old times" were not good.The location of the master and servant was not as good then as it is now.A return to old conditions would be bad for both the man who serves and civilization.The change is upon us, beyond our power to alter, and therefore to be accepted and made the best of.It is pointless to criticize the inevitable.
It's easy to see how the change has changed.Almost every phase of the cause will be served by one illustration.We have the whole story in the manufacture of products.The inventions of this scientific age stimulated and enlarged all combinations of human industry.Part of the household was formed when articles were manufactured in small shops.The master and his apprentices lived side by side and were subject to the same conditions.When these apprentices rose to be masters, there was little or no change in their life style, and they were educated the same way as the succeeding apprentices.Those who were engaged in industrial activities had little or no political voice in the State.
The poor enjoy what the rich can't.The necessities of life have become luxuries.The landlord used to have more comforts than the laborer.
The result was crude articles at high prices.The generation preceding this would have deemed the world's commodities of excellent quality incredible.Similar causes have produced similar results in the commercial world.The rich can't afford what the poor can.The necessities of life have become luxuries.The landlord used to have more comforts than the laborer.The farmer is better housed and has more luxuries than the landlord.The landlord has books and pictures that are more artistic than the King could get.
The price we pay for this change is great.In the factory, the mine, and the counting-house, we assemble thousands of operatives who the employer can't know anything about.They are at an end.There are rigid castes and mutual distrust.Each caste has no sympathy for the other and will credit anything bad about it.Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently.homogeneity is lost in human society.
The price society pays for the law of competition is great, but it is also great for it to bring improved conditions in the train, because we owe our wonderful material development to it.We must say that the law is here, we cannot evade it, and no substitute for it has been found.As conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race, we welcome them.The merchant and manufacturer have to conduct affairs on a great scale and there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability.The fact that this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proof that it always secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions.The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but also to render the question of his capital barely worth considering, for such men soon create capital.Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions and estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth.The great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt because there is no middle ground which such men can occupy.To stand still is impossible if it goes forward or falls behind.It is an essential condition for a successful operation that it should be profitable and make money.It is a law, as certain as any of the others, that men with this peculiar talent for affair, under the free play of economic forces, must be in receipt of more revenue than can be spent on themselves.
Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with others.We can't be sure of the effect of a new substitute.The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow.One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that property civilization is dependent on the laborer's hundred dollars in the savings bank and the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.The answer is: The race has tried that.From that barbarous day to the present time, all progress has been caused by its displacement.Not evil, but good, has come to the race from those who have the ability and energy to accumulate wealth.It might be better for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism, because it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows.It necessitates the changing of human nature, even if it were good to change it, which we don't know.
It isn't feasible in our day or age.It is a part of another and long-succeeding sociological stratum.With the next step possible in our day and generation, our duty is with what is practicable now.When all we can do is bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances, it's criminal to waste our time trying to uproot.The highest existing type of man should be destroyed because he failed to reach our ideal as favor the destruction of Individualism, Private Property, and the Law of Accumulation of Wealth.These laws are imperfect as they appear to the idealist, but they are still the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.
We start with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few.Accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good.After the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few, what is the proper mode of administering wealth?I think I have the solution to this great question.The returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families are not moderate sums saved by many years of effort.This is not wealth, but only competence which should be the aim of all.
There are three ways in which surplus wealth can be monetized.It can either be left to the families of the deceased, or it can be bequeathed for public use.Most of the world's wealth has been applied under the first and second modes.Let us look at each mode.The first is the most dangerous.In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son.The condition of this class teaches the futility of hopes and ambitions.The successors have become impoverished because of the fall in the value of land.In Great Britain, the strict law of entail is not enough to maintain the status of an hereditary class.The soil is moving quickly.Under republican institutions the division of property among the children is more equal, but the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children?Is this done from misguided affection?It is not well for the children to be so heavy.It isn't well for the state.Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums oftener work more for injury than the good of the recipients.The wise men will conclude that bequests are not in the best interests of the members of their families and the state.
It is not suggested that men who fail to educate their sons to earn a living will end up in poverty.The duty of the parent is to instill in his sons the idea that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to financial considerations.There are instances of millionaires' sons who are rich who still perform great services in the community.Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, 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 man must shortly say,
It may be said that leaving wealth at death for public use is only a means for the disposal of wealth, if a man is content to wait until he is dead before he can make a difference in the world.Knowledge of the legacies' results is not used to inspire hope for the future.The cases in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained are not uncommon.He uses the bequests to become monuments of his folly.It is important to remember that it requires the use of less ability than that obtained to be really beneficial to the community.It may be said that no man is to be praised for doing what he can't help doing or for leaving wealth at death.If men were able to take it with them, they wouldn't have left so much money in this way.There is no grace in their gifts and the memories cannot be held in grateful remembrance.The bequests seem to lack the blessing.
The growth of a salutary change in public opinion is an indication of the growing disposition to tax estates left at death.One-tenth of the property left by its citizens is now taken by the State of Pennsylvania.The new tax is to be a graduated one and the budget presented in the British Parliament proposes to increase the death-duties.This seems to be the wisest form of taxation.The community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share if men who continue to accumulate great sums all their lives are made to feel that the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community.The state condemns the selfish millionaire's life by taxing estates heavily at death.
Nations should go further in this direction.It is difficult to set bounds for the share of a rich man's estate which should go to the public through the agency of the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning with nothing and increasing rapidly as the amount increases.
It is the end of society that it should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people, that this policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life.It is not necessary to fear that this policy will affect the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and be talked about after their death, it will attract even more attention.
We have the true antidote for the temporary distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor, a reign of harmony, which is different from the communist ideal.The race is projected to put it in practice whenever it pleases, because it is founded upon the present most intense individualism.We will have an ideal state in which the surplus wealth of the few will be administered for the common good, and this wealth can be made a much more potent force.To agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trif is possible.
If we compare the results of the Cooper Institute to those that would have arisen from an equal amount of money given to them by Mr. Cooper, we can see that the best part of New York is not possessed of means.If this sum were distributed in small quantities among the people, it would have been wasted in the pursuit of appetite, and it might not have yielded the desired results.The advocate of violent or radical change should ponder this thought.
In referring to Mr. Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York, how much better would it be?Mr. Tilden's millions will become the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books will be 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 have been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums.This subject must be entertained by the most ardent advocate of Communism.Most of the people who think will entertain.
Poor and restricted are what we have in this life, but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon.They have the power to organize benefactions from which their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives.The highest life is probably to be reached, not by imitation of the life of Christ, but by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to them.
To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance is the duty of the man of Wealth.
The duty of the man of Wealth is to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance, and to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him.
What is modest, unostentatious living and what is the test of extravagance are all difficult to determine.Different standards are needed for different conditions.It is not possible to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety, but these are known and well known.To feel what offends these, public sentiment is quick to know.In the case of wealth.There is a rule about good taste in the dress of men and women.Whatever it is, one offends the canon.If any family are chiefly known for display, extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, we have no difficulty estimating its nature or culture.So also in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses.
The verdict is dependent on the best and most enlightened public sentiment.Judgements from the community will not often be wrong.
Surplus wealth can be put to use.One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.It was better for mankind that the rich were thrown into the sea than that they were encouraged to drink and be slothful.Of every thousand dollars spent in charity, it is likely that $950 will be spent to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure.A well-known writer of books about philosophy gave a quarter of a dollar to a man who approached him as he was about to go to his friend's house.Although he had every reason to suspect that the money would be wasted, he didn't know the habits of the beggar.This man professed to be a follower of Herbert Spencer, yet the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will do good.He only saved himself from annoyance, and this was one of the worst actions of his life, for he is most deserving.
To bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those that desire to improve may do so; and to give people who want to use the aids that they may rise, but rarely or never to do.The individual and race are not improved by giving.Those deserving of assistance, except in rare cases, don't need assistance.In cases of accident or sudden change, the valuable men of the race never do.He will not overlook the cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good.The amount of money an individual can give is limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances.He is the only true reformer who is as careful and anxious not to aid the deserving as he is to help the worthy, and perhaps even more so, for in giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice.
The rich man is almost restricted to following the example of Peter Cooper and others, who know that the best way to benefit the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.