Review Of Andrew Carnegie's Essay 'Gospel Of Wealth'

Andrew Carnegie: Friend or Foe

"The Gospel of Wealth" has been called "the most famous document in the history of American philanthropy. It described the responsibility of distribution of wealth by the new upper class of the self made rich. The main point of Carnegie’s essay was the danger of allowing large sums of money to be passed into the hands of people or organizations that were not capable of dealing with money adequately. His solution was for the wealthy entrepreneur to assume the responsibility of distributing their fortune in a way that it would be put to good use and not wasted on irresponsible expenditures. Carnegie states, “Of every thousand dollars spent in so-called charity today, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate
These facilities, however, don’t cure hunger or poverty. In another aspect, he has helped to hurt the race and in his quest for wealth, he impoverished many people in the process. He helped create the problem of poverty and made men unworthy of the use of “indiscriminate charity.” Carnegie did not speak of the corporate takeovers in his attempt and success of eliminating the competition by following the “Law of Competition” and the “Law of the Accumulation of Wealth.” Hard working men were out of work and unable to support their families and some men that did have jobs couldn’t support their families on the unfair wages he paid his employees. He decided and uniquely achieved the feat of giving away 90% of his fortune in his own lifetime, but only when he could dictate and shape the purposes for which the money was spent. Carnegie did not trust the people in which he meant to help. He felt a sort of guilt in his later years because of all the people he hurt along the way in order to become the world’s wealthiest man of the