Some people believe that if you work hard, get an education, and stay focused you will be able to be successful and fulfill all your dreams. Others believe that only if you are born into a family of money will you be able to be wealthy. Both thoughts have some flaws in their description. For example, just because you always work hard and get an education does not mean some life event might happen that can cause some setbacks. Also, just because you are born into a wealthy family does not mean you are smart enough to keep the wealth. Social Darwinism and The Gospel of Wealth explain these thoughts more. There are some similarities but many more differences between the two theories.
Herbert Spencer and William Sumner were the two that made Social
He started with nothing and was able to be very successful. By working hard, he was hired by a railroad company. He was smart and open up a factory to change iron to steel and sell it to every on the market. Carnegie want to be able to own everything to be able to charge less which makes him able to control most of the market. This makes him extremely wealthy and shows people that if they work hard, they can become wealthy. Andrew Carnegie then began to think about his wealth and what he should do with it. He comes to the decision that he should give back to people and use his money for good. Carnegie then writes a book called The Gospel of Wealth. The Gospel of Wealth stated that it is the wealthy’s job to give to the poor to help them survive. It was everyone’s responsibility to help the people that were in need. Individual wealth should be passed to the society or the state rather than their kids and the wealthy should administer it. The rich were the fittest people so it should be their duty to take care of the poor or less fit people.
Social Darwinism and The Gospel of Wealth are about ideas of improving our society. They both state what they believe would be best for our society and how we should treat poor people. They also state that there will be an uneven distribution of wealth to people and most of the power of wealth would be held by very few. Both Social Darwinism and The Gospel
The rich tycoons of their society refused to share their money with the poor. Andrew Carnegie and Samuel Gompers both wrote their essays towards the wealthy with hopes to make a difference for the poor workers and unemployed. Rich tycoons would do anything to keep it for themselves, if it meant leaving it as inheritance
Andrew Carnegie, was a strong-minded man who believed in equal distribution and different forms to manage wealth. One of the methods he suggested was to tax revenues to help out the public. He believed in successors enriching society by paying taxes and death taxes. Carnegie’s view did not surprise me because it was the only form people could not unequally distribute their wealth amongst the public, and the mediocre American economy. Therefore, taxations would lead to many more advances in the American economy and for public purposes.
Both social darwinism and social gospel are ideologies surrounding the economics of urban and industrialization of the 19th century. Both of these were processes on the wealthy, and exactly how they would deal with poor and working class individuals. However, the specific execution on how these were done, as well as the goal were vastly different. Social Darwinism, just like Evolutionary Darwinism, really means survival of the fittest. The strongest survive and the weakest stay weak and eventually die. Relating this theory to economics; Social Darwinism is when a wealthy person keeps his money for him and his kin. Said person usually holds an attitude of, “the rich should get richer and the poor should stay poor.” On the other side of the economic
The Gospel of Wealth is primarily about the dispersion of wealth and the responsibilities of those who have it. Carnegie thinks that inheritance is detrimental to society because it does not do any good for the inheritor or the community. Inheritance promotes laziness and the lack of a good work ethic does not teach the young sons of wealthy men to make money for themselves or help those in community they live in. Carnegie believes that charity is also bad and instead of handouts money should be given to those in a position to help the needy help themselves to be better citizens. It is the responsibility of the wealthy to use their surplus earnings to start foundations for open institutions that will benefit everyone. Men who only leave their money to the public after they are dead which makes it appear to say that if they could take the money with them they would. For this reason Carnegie is in support of Death taxes to encourage men to spend and use their money during their life. Carnegie says in his essay that a definite separation of the classes is productive for society and is very natural. If the classes were to become equal it would be a forced and change thus being revolution and not evolution...
To understand Carnegie before he became a wealthy man, he grew up poor working for $1.20 a week (Document LV). At the age of 50 years, he took a risk by investing in a package delivery company. His gamble paid off and he gained money to start his company, Carnegie’s Steel Company. Eventually, his company grew and caused
Of all the rags-to-riches tales in history, there are none that can compare to the likes of Andrew Carnegie’s. Although Carnegie was a man whose character fell somewhere between callous and benevolent, his abundant contributions to America are nothing short of remarkable. His journey is an exemplary display of the true opportunity that you are given in America regardless of the card you have been dealt. While his sheer wealth was very notable, his philanthropic influences are not to go unnoticed either. Andrew Carnegie was one of the first businessmen to promote public-spirited philosophies that simultaneously achieved individual profit and benefited the America as a whole.
Andrew Carnegie and his philanthropy made him a hero because he helped more people than harm in the long run, by this I mean he helped other countries. He also sets a great example to everyone that helping others or someone is not something you need to wait to do when you are no longer living. If someone needed help and even a stable person had the choice to help but until they are no longer alive has little meaning. Perhaps it would be too late when the person isn’t around anymore. Its about what someone can do to help when they are around, it is about what a person can do in the time of need even if it is not much but a little of anything can go a long way. In (Doc C) there is a list of amounts of money that Carnegie has donated to various places which in total he has donated well over $271m but aside from that his corporation is giving out about $100m a year, most of it to education (Doc C)
Andrew Carnegie, born 1835 in the small town of Dunfermline, Scotland. He remains one of the richest people who ever lived and became the world’s first modern philanthropist. He has impacted many across the country and the world. He had lived in one of the first mansions with a steel frame and central heating. By the end of his life he had given over 2,600 public libraries to broaden the education of many in the United States and Scotland. This fairy tale life didn’t start off so happily. Carnegie’s family wasn’t the most affluent in the country, they were actually desperately poor, however, their influence on Andrew and his brother Tom, was rich. Carnegie’s mother, Margaret Carnegie, taught him the thirst to survive and thrive. She taught him to put his needs before the needs of anyone else. This greatly affected his business and business techniques later in life. His father, William Carnegie, was a handloom weaver, who believed in making conditions better for the working man and taught him the value of helping others less fortunate. Andrew Carnegie once said, "He who dies thus rich dies disgraced"; the teachings of his father were well absorbed and helped him later in life as well.
In the documents titled, William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism and Andrew Carnegie Explains the Gospel of Wealth, Sumner and Carnegie both analyze their perspective on the idea on “social darwinism.” To begin with, both documents argue differently about wealth, poverty and their consequences. Sumner is a supporter of social darwinism. In the aspects of wealth and poverty he believes that the wealthy are those with more capital and rewards from nature, while the poor are “those who have inherited disease and depraved appetites, or have been brought up in vice and ignorance, or have themselves yielded to vice, extravagance, idleness, and imprudence” (Sumner, 36). The consequences of Sumner’s views on wealth and poverty is that they both contribute to the idea of inequality and how it is not likely for the poor to be of equal status with the wealthy. Furthermore, Carnegie views wealth and poverty as a reciprocative relation. He does not necessarily state that the wealthy and poor are equal, but he believes that the wealthy are the ones who “should use their wisdom, experiences, and wealth as stewards for the poor” (textbook, 489). Ultimately, the consequences of
Even though these men attempted to build a stable foundation for America to grow on, their negative aspects dramatically outweighed the positive. Even though Andrew Carnegie donated his fortunes to charity, he only acquired the money through unjustifiable actions. As these industrialists continued to monopolize companies through illegal actions, plutocracy- government controlled by the wealthy, took control of the Constitution. Sequentially, they used their power to prevent controls by state legislatures. These circumstances effect the way one
Carnegie was the classic rags to riches story, the penniless immigrant who made it big in the land of opportunity. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and migrated to America in 1848 at the age of 13. His first job was in a cotton mill, earning a measly $1.20 each week. Carnegie was ambitious and determined though and by the next year had gotten a job in a Pittsburg telegraph office. It was here he got his foot in the door to the business of Pittsburg. This allowed him to begin a job at the Pennsylvania Railroad as a secretary to the railroad official, Thomas Scott. By making wise choices, taking contro...
Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man are two revolutionary pieces of literature that challenged the pre-existing notions and gave rise to a great deal of intellectual thought. Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in order to introduce the concept of communism and highlight the flaws of a capitalistic, bourgeois-run government. The Manifesto essentially empowered the proletariat (working class) to rebel against the capitalistic economic system in order to achieve the communistic ideals of social equality. Darwin’s Descent of Man, on the other hand, presents the fundamental evolutionary concept which, based on scientific evidence, emphasizes the concept of descent with modification in regard to the development of man. Marx describes an inner class conflict; the working class must compete with each other to supply the bourgeois with revenue earned through their labor, otherwise known as
In the “Gospel of wealth”, Andrew Carnegie argues that it is the duty of the wealthy entrepreneur who has amassed a great fortune during their lifetime, to give back to those less fortunate. Greed and selfishness may force some readers to see these arguments as preposterous; however, greed is a key ingredient in successful competition. It forces competitors to perform at a higher level than their peers in hopes of obtaining more money and individual wealth. A capitalist society that allows this wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few might be beneficial to the human race because it could promote competition between companies; it might ensure health care for everyone no matter their social standing, and parks and recreation could be built for the enjoyment of society.
Carnegie saw how bad the wooden railroads were, so he proceeded to slowly replace them with iron ones. Carnegie's charm, perception, and hard work led to becoming one of the world's most famous men of the time, and led to the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization in excess of one billion when he sold his companies to John Morgan who called them United States Steel Corporation.
The theory of Social Darwinism is the belief that humans and different races are to have the same laws of natural selection. It is was created by a man named Herbert Spencer although they didn’t name him the creator until the 1930’s This theory was more popular in the 19th and 20th centuries. Social Darwinism is also ruled but the theory of survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest is the belief that the more adapted will survive the best. This theory is seen in the novel The Jungle. Its seen by the people who are trying really hard. The ones that work hard are usually the ones who will last longer. For example if you aren’t working hard then you probably won’t have that job long. Also if you are used to working in tough conditions