People who make themselves wealthy sometimes make others better off as well, and it's possible to view the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Stanford types much more positively than I suggested in lecture. With Andrew Carnegie especially, it's easy to view him more positively than I do. Please read through Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth. How does reading this affect your general impression of Carnegie? Does it make you more sympathetic or not?
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth (extra credit)
People who make themselves wealthy sometimes make others better off as well, and it's possible to view the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Stanford types much more positively than I suggested in lecture. With Andrew Carnegie especially, it's easy to view him more positively than I do. Please read through Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth. How does reading this affect your general impression of Carnegie? Does it make you more sympathetic or not?
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While I admire what Carnegie did in building libraries and whatnot, I still believe that the things he did was wrong. When thinking about this I related Carnegie to Jesse James. For those who don't know he was a thief that robbed banks and gave money back to those who were wronged by the government, or just couldn't support themselves. While what he did was noble, Jesse James was still a thief. This leads me to relate that while Carnegie did good things, he was still corrupt and wrong in the way he got his money.
ReplyDeleteYou do make a good point. He was a ruthless businessman. His business practices where unethical but technically legal, at least at the time, But I think your right in that the ends don't necessarily justify the means.
DeleteAfter reading Carnegie’s writing I find that I have a much stronger liking of him than my readings of our book would lead me to believe. He was a sneaky and ruthless businessman but he was very generous with his money when he died. He seemed to believe that one shouldn’t amass too much wealth without giving back to the community, and he seemed to hate the idea of leaving all of your money to your children like some sort of billionaire dynasty. I can think of some billionaires today who could learn from that. Overall I enjoyed the reading and agreed with Carnegie’s opinions on wealth.
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