Our modern world is focused on unimportant things such as celebrities and their eating disorders. Whatever happened to close-knit communities focusing on neighbors and their families? Although individuals may not seem important when blended into a crowd, each person is a puzzle piece to the community.
According to Andrew Carnegie in his piece The Gospel of Wealth, he believes that the rich are (or should be) responsible for the poor. He gives an example of a young man tossing a quarter to a beggar to keep him from annoying him. However, the question must be asked: Who in the world said that a rich man must take care of his community? Why is it suddenly his responsibility? (Carnegie, 2013)
Wealth comes from only one of several reasons: one, it is inheritance passed down from one generation to the next. Two, it is righteously hard-earned and achieved through many trials; and three, out of thieving. A good example of inheritance is Finn Rausing, a Swede who inherited 5.1 billion dollars from his grandfather. An obvious example of a hard-earned paycheck is America’s very own, Steve Jobs (Moisescot, 2010). Then there are women like Rita Crundwell who love to embezzle millions of dollars from tax payers. (Babwin, 2013)
People who are wealthy are wealthy for a reason. They don’t continually spend it on little trinkets that they’ll forget about in a couple days. Like the middle-class and welfare-reliant, rich people will flock to sales just as easily. But unlike the middle-class and welfare-reliant, they won’t go out to buy expensive name-brand items. It’s not to say that they don’t, but they know how to keep their money in their bank accounts.
Suddenly, if one has more money than his friends, it’s his job to watch over the community a...
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...ple do not care about, but are important nonetheless? It is our responsibility to not have responsibilities, in the sense that everyone should be able to take control over their own lives without being forced to have a sense of duty.
Works Cited
Babwin, D. (2013). Rita Crundwell Sentencing: Nearly 20 years for ex-comptroller who stole $53 million from town. Huff Post Chicago.
Carnegie, A. (2013). The Gospel of Wealth. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition (pp. 361-363). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Hardin. (2013). Lifeboat Ethics. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Moisescot, R. (2010). Long Bio. Retrieved Feb 10, 2014, from All About Steve Jobs: http://allaboutstevejobs.com
Singer, P. (2013). The Singer Solution to World Poverty. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition (pp. 369-374). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Carnegie’s essay contains explanations of three common methods by which wealth is distributed and his own opinions on the effects of each. After reading the entire essay, readers can see his overall appeals to logos; having wealth does not make anyone rich, but using that wealth for the greater good does. He does not force his opinions onto the reader, but is effectively convincing of why his beliefs make sense. Andrew Carnegie’s simple explanations intertwined with small, but powerful appeals to ethos and pathos become incorporated into his overall appeal to logos in his definition of what it means for one to truly be rich.
Singer, Peter. “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” in The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing. John D. Ramage, John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2009. 545-49. Print.
In June 1889, Andrew Carnegie wrote an article known as, “The Gospel of Wealth,” or “Wealth,” which portrays the responsibility of philanthropy. In the article, Carnegie acknowledges the “three modes in which wealth can be disposed of, which are, “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…” Moreover, Carnegie believes a rich man shouldn’t leave a fortune to their families and men shouldn’t wait until death to donate money for public uses. In addition, Carnegie (1889) portrays that, the only mode for a rich man to use their fortune is, “to produce the most beneficial results for the community- the man of wealth thus becoming the … agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer; doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves… The man who dies rich dies disgraced,” (doc 8). Nevertheless, Carnegie believes that a man of wealth should donate as much money as possible during his life to become much good in the world while living. This evidence helps explain why Andrew Carnegie was a hero because he acknowledges that a man of wealth should donate to those in need while living which makes Carnegie a courageous
Singer, Peter. "The Singer Solution to World Poverty." The New York Times Magazine 05 Sept. 1999: 60-63. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
This statement is true, but the money that sustained the philanthropic ways of the Industrialists was obtained in a way exemplify the qualities of a Robber Baron. A list of Rockefeller's major donations added up to about $500,000,000. While this money went charities and hospitals, the money was made from unethical business practices and the undermining of employees. The Saturday Globe’s political cartoon of Carnegie shows him cutting wages and giving away libraries and money. Industrialists took money that went from their workers away to practice philanthropy. The money might have gone to great causes, but the way it was obtained is characteristic of Robber Barons. Andrew Carnegie's essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” he describes the role of the wealthy in the community. Carnegie class the millionaire a “trust for the poor” and states that the wealthy know how to best invest n the community. This role taken on by Carnegie and other wealthy Americans of the late 19th century is reminiscent of that of an oligarchy, where a small group has control of the community. The oligarchical position of the wealthy in Carnegie's essay is against the American values of freedom and individuality, and very discriminatory towards the
Wealth is an article by Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish American, showed his views on their social class during the Gilded Age, the late 19th century, discussing the “rich and poor.” Carnegie in fact was one of the wealthiest men because of his major success in the steel industry.
Everyone has his or her own ideas of how wealth should be distributed properly. Some people believe wealth should be left to family, left for public services, or become the property of others. Others believe that people should not have excess wealth, resulting in non-existent class distinctions. An alternative view is that wealth is not distributed; instead, the wealthy continue to grow wealthier while those in poverty can not escape it and fall further into a life of poverty. The beliefs discussed above come from three different writers. Those writers include Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, and Robert B. Reich. These writers all have different opinions on how wealth should be distributed properly.
In Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth” he outlines what the rich man’s responsibilities to the public is regarding his wealth. Andrew Carnegie was one of his times wealthiest men and wrote this in 1889. He states that, “Our duty is with what is practicable now-with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of the good fruit under existing circumstances (Carnegie 23-24).” In his writing he talks about the best way to dispose of the wealth one has acquired. The remainder of this paper will address the
Life is unfair. The world has been, is, and will forever be unfair. This is because people do not get to chose the situations into which they are born. Some are lucky and will live pampered lives without much worry. Some will have to work hard for many years in order to become successful. Yet others will be seemingly cursed with a desperate situation in which every day they will struggle to stay alive with little to no hope of this lifestyle ever changing. It is this last way of life that deeply concerned a writer for the New York Times, Peter Singer, enough to write a lengthy article on what can be done to fix this. In this writing he suggests that everyone has the financial means to donate large sums of money and should do so accordingly.
Not everything that is expensive is better. Rich people can get everything they want, but middle class people need to think if they need it, or they can find the same thing cheaper. Most people try to find cheaper things, but some buy expensive things, because they think that it will help them to feel that they are rich. First, people buy those expensive things, and after that they are in debt. Expensive things need a lot of money, but people don’t have them, so they use credit cards to buy for that. According to the article “All that glitters is not gold” says that auto exhibition 32% of attendees bought a car and 56% of attendees reported they were going to buy a car in the near future. It shows that that people don’t have money, but they saw that other people bought the car, and they want it also. My parents just last week bought a new car, because our old one broke. My dad said that everyone has big, and new cars, so we need to buy a costly car like other people have. I thought that it was a stupid idea to look at expensive car, but anyway he found a good car, nor costly, nor cheap car. It is middle cost, and it is a wonderful car. Running after expansive things people forget to look of prices. They forget that they will need to pay for that thing for many years after they buy
Hardin, G. (1974, September ). Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor. Retrieved fromhttp://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html
Carnegie, Andrew. "The Gospel of Wealth." Mountain View College Reader. Neuleib, Janice. Cain S., Kathleen. Ruffus, Stephen. Boston: 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900. 2013 Print.
In this paper I will argue that Singers arguments for solving world poverty are unrealistic for most people, not just those people in a well-off nation as America. Singer’s arguments are based on a Utilitarian Philosophic point of view, where he believes and practices the morally expected acts of kindness to our fellowmen. He does this through donating most of his salary to charities and argues that we should strive to do the same, but digress and argues the grave challenge that we face in our decision to adopt his philosophy. He concludes that all humans, specifically us in America faces the predicament of how we should act as it relates to how much we give to suffering
It’s very common for people sometimes to forget how important we all are to society. It seems like all we care about is no one but ourselves. What we do, how much money we earn, our self image, seems more important than anything else. One thing that I’ve learned, and think of it as an important value in life is not to underestimate people. We are all important no matter what we do.
Although it has been said that money is the root of all evil, many people actually believe that they would be happier if they were wealthier. Could this be correct? This essay will support the thesis that not only does the pursuit of wealth not lead to happiness; it may actually make us unhappy.