The Gospel of Wealth: Rich and Poor

Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835 and came to America as a poor boy of twelve, when his first job in a cotton mill paid little more than a dollar a week.He went on to build the largest steel company in the world, and in 1901 he sold it and became one of the richest men who had ever lived.In 1889, years before he sold the company, he wrote an essay called “Wealth,” which soon became famous as “The Gospel of Wealth.”

“The problem of our age is how to manage wealth, so that the rich and the poor can still live together as brothers.In the past there was little difference between a chief and his people; when I visited the Sioux, the chief’s tent looked almost exactly like the tents of the poorest men in his tribe.Today the difference between a millionaire’s palace and a worker’s cottage shows how much the world has changed.

In the old days, goods were made by hand in small shops, where the master and his apprentices worked side by side and lived in the same house.The result was rough goods at high prices; today factories make excellent goods so cheaply that the poor enjoy what even the rich could not afford before.What were luxuries have become the necessities of life.

But we pay a price for this change: thousands of workers gather in one factory, and the employer knows little or nothing about them.Rich and poor stop talking to each other, and, as usual, ignorance on both sides breeds distrust on both sides.Competition forces employers to cut costs, including wages, and so there is often friction between capital and labor.

Still, I believe this system has brought more progress than any other that has been tried, and that it naturally puts great wealth into the hands of a few.By wealth I do not mean the modest savings a family needs to live comfortably and educate its children; that is not wealth but a competence, and everyone should aim to have one.The real question is this: once great fortunes are in the hands of a few, what is the right way to use them?”