What was the Gospel of Wealth? What is another name for giving to charity?
Originally titled simply "Wealth" and published in theN American Review in June 1889, Andrew Carnegie'southward essay "The Gospel of Wealth" is considered a foundational document in the field of philanthropy. Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during one's lifetime, and this essay includes one of his nigh famous quotes, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." Carnegie's message continues to resonate with and inspire leaders and philanthropists around the world.
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"The Gospel of Wealth"
By Andrew Carnegie
The problem of our historic period is the proper assistants of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may notwithstanding bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, merely revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are today where civilized man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was just similar the others in external appearance, and even within the departure was trifling between information technology and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, nonetheless, is not to exist deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. Information technology is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be and so. Much better this bang-up irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Mæcenas. The "skillful old times " were non practiced old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated so equally to-24-hour interval. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both—non the least so to him who serves—and would sweep away civilization with it. But whether the alter exist for adept or ill, information technology is upon usa, across our power to modify, and therefore to be accustomed and made the all-time of. It is a waste product of time to criticize the inevitable.
It is easy to see how the alter has come up. One illustration volition serve for almost every phase of the cause. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human manufacture, equally stimulated and enlarged past the inventions of this scientific historic period. Formerly articles were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to exist masters, there was little or no change in their style of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. At that place was, essentially social equality, and even political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then petty or no political vocalization in the State.
"The poor enjoy what the rich could non earlier afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has at present more comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago."
Simply the inevitable result of such a manner of manufacture was crude manufactures at high prices. Today the world obtains commodities of splendid quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes take produced like results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor relish what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries accept become the necessaries of life. The laborer has at present more than comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and better housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the Rex could so obtain.
The toll we pay for this salutary alter is, no doubt, not bad. We assemble thousands of operatives in the mill, in the mine, and in the counting-business firm, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, common ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each degree is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to information technology. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor effigy prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between uppercase and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.
The cost which society pays for the police force of competition, similar the cost it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also bully; simply the advantage of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that nosotros owe our wonderful material evolution, which brings improved conditions in its railroad train. But, whether the police be benign or not, we must say of it, as nosotros say of the change in the conditions of men to which nosotros accept referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it accept been establish; and while the police may exist sometimes hard for the private, it is best for the race, because information technology insures the survival of the fittest in every section. We accept and welcome therefore, as atmospheric condition to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as existence not but beneficial, just essential for the future progress of the race. Having accustomed these, information technology follows that there must be great scope for the exercise of special power in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to behave diplomacy upon a neat scale. That this talent for arrangement and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or weather condition. The experienced in affairs always rate the Human being whose services tin can exist obtained as a partner equally not only the get-go consideration, only such every bit to return the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create upper-case letter; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can occupy, considering the swell manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its majuscule presently becomes bankrupt. It must either go forrad or fall behind: to stand up still is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that information technology should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, it should brand profit. Information technology is a police, as certain as whatever of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, nether the costless play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this constabulary is as beneficial for the race as the others.
Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with whatsoever others which take been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes proposed nosotros cannot exist sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present atmospheric condition is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its beginning from the twenty-four hours that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, "If chiliad dost non sow, 1000 shalt non reap," and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will before long be brought face up to face up with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property culture itself depends--the correct of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. To these who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, but proficient, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce information technology. But even if we acknowledge for a moment that it might be improve for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism,—that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself solitary, merely in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in mutual, realizing Swedenborg's idea of Sky, where, every bit he says, the angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for cocky, only for each other,—even admit all this, and a sufficient reply is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the irresolute of homo nature itself a piece of work of eons, fifty-fifty if it were good to change it, which we cannot know.
It is non practicable in our day or in our historic period. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the side by side pace possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a piddling in the direction nigh favorable to the product of good fruit under existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our platonic as favor the devastation of Individualism, Individual Property, the Police of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of man feel, the soil in which gild so far has produced the all-time fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, every bit these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect every bit they appear to the Idealist, they are, all the same, like the highest blazon of human being, the best and virtually valuable of all that humanity has nevertheless achieved.
Nosotros start, then, with a status of affairs under which the all-time interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions every bit they be, the state of affairs can be surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises,—and, if the foregoing be correct, information technology is the just question with which we have to deal,—What is the proper manner of administering wealth later the laws upon which civilisation is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few ? And it is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. Information technology volition be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns on which are required for the comfy maintenance and instruction of families. This is non wealth, just only competence which information technology should be the aim of all to larn.
There are just three modes in which surplus wealth tin exist disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can exist bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it tin can be administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let usa in turn consider each of these modes. The showtime is the almost injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the get-go son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this course in Europe to-day teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors accept go impoverished through their follies or from the autumn in the value of land. Fifty-fifty in Great Britain the strict law of entail has been plant inadequate to maintain the status of an hereditary grade. Its soil is quickly passing into the easily of the stranger. Under republican institutions the sectionalisation of property amidst the children is much fairer, but the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, information technology is not well for the children that they should exist and so encumbered. Neither is information technology well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums ancestral oftener work more than for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men volition before long conclude that, for the all-time interests of the members of their families and of the country, such bequests are an improper use of their ways.
It is non suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall bandage them adrift in poverty. If any human being has seen fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly laudable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in moderation. At that place are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, existence rich, still perform slap-up services in the customs. Such are the very salt of the globe, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; still it is non the exception, merely the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the usual event of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful homo must shortly say, "I would as shortly leave to my son a curse as the omnipotent dollar," and acknowledge to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, merely family unit pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.
As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, information technology may exist said that this is but a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead earlier it becomes of much good in the globe. Cognition of the results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good existence achieved. The cases are not few in which the real object sought past the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his existent wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to become just monuments of his folly. Information technology is well to recall that it requires the exercise of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use information technology so as to be really benign to the customs. Besides this, it may adequately be said that no man is to exist extolled for doing what he cannot aid doing, nor is he to exist thanked past the community to which he only leaves wealth at expiry. Men who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be idea men who would non accept left information technology at all, had they been able to accept it with them. The memories of such cannot be held in grateful remembrance, for there is no grace in their gifts. It is not to exist wondered at that such bequests seem and then generally to lack the blessing.
The growing disposition to taxation more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes—subject to some exceptions—i-tenth of the holding left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other solar day proposes to increase the death-duties; and, near significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who go on hoarding not bad sums all their lives, the proper utilize of which for - public ends would work expert to the customs, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the land marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire'southward unworthy life.
It is desirable that nations should get much further in this direction. Indeed, information technology is hard to set premises to the share of a rich man's estate which should get at his death to the public through the agency of the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly equally the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock'southward, at least
"The other one-half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state."
This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the terminate that society should e'er take in view, as being that by far well-nigh fruitful for the people. Nor need information technology exist feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less broken-hearted to accumulate, for to the grade whose appetite it is to leave great fortunes and be talked almost after their death, it will attract even more attending, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.
At that place remains, then, only one way of using great fortunes; but in this we take the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor—a reign of harmony—another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. Information technology is founded upon the present well-nigh intense individualism, and the race is projected to put it in do past degree whenever it pleases. Nether its sway we shall accept an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many, because administered for the common skillful, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest tin can be fabricated to run into this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more than valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.
If nosotros consider what results menses from the Cooper Institute, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means, and compare these with those which would take arisen for the skilful of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the class of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and non for clemency, we can grade some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum if distributed in pocket-size quantities among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may exist doubted whether even the part put to the best employ, that of adding to the comforts of the dwelling house, would accept yielded results for the race, every bit a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Allow the advocate of violent or radical alter ponder well this thought.
We might even become so far as to have another example, that of Mr. Tilden's bequest of 5 millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York, but in referring to this one cannot help proverb involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the concluding years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which example neither legal contest nor any other crusade of delay could accept interfered with his aims. But permit united states assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally get the means of giving to this metropolis a noble public library, where the treasures of the world independent in books volition be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that office of the race which congregates in and effectually Manhattan Isle, would its permanent benefit accept been ameliorate promoted had these millions been immune to circulate in pocket-size sums through the hands of the masses? Even the about strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Virtually of those who call up volition probably entertain no doubt any.
Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our all-time work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such false of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, merely, while animated past Christ'due south spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we alive; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and educational activity, but laboring in a dissimilar style.
"This, and then, is held to be the duty of the homo of Wealth: Starting time, to ready an example of pocket-size, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance."
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: Commencement, to set up an instance of small-scale, unostentatious living, shunning brandish or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and subsequently doing then to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administrate, and strictly leap every bit a affair of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the nigh beneficial results for the community—the human of wealth thus condign the mere amanuensis and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administrate, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
Nosotros are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. At that place must be dissimilar standards for different weather. The answer is that it is as incommunicable to name exact amounts or deportment equally information technology is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although indefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The dominion in regard to good taste in the clothes of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If whatever family unit be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in abode, tabular array, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if these exist its principal distinctions, nosotros have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So likewise in regard to the employ or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the final, whether they administrate or bequeath.
The verdict rests with the best and most aware public sentiment. The community volition surely judge and its judgments will non often be wrong.
The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put have already been indicated. These who, would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than and then spent every bit to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so chosen charity to-day, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very evils which information technology proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic books admitted the other 24-hour interval that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a human being who approached him equally he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar; knew not the use that would be made of this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would exist spent improperly. This human professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; notwithstanding the quarter-dollar given that dark will probably work more than injury than all the money which its thoughtless donor will ever exist able to requite in true charity will do expert. He but gratified his ain feelings, saved himself from annoyance,—and this was probably one of the near selfish and very worst deportment of his life, for in all respects he is most worthy.
In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will assist themselves; to provide part of the means past which those who desire to improve may exercise so; to requite those who want to utilise the aids by which they may ascension; to assist, but rarely or never to exercise all. Neither the private nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in cases of accident or sudden modify. Every one has, of class, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary aid tin do genuine good, and these he volition not overlook. But the amount which tin be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of cognition of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as broken-hearted non to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, fifty-fifty more and then, for in alms-giving more than injury is probably done past rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.
The rich man is thus nigh restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the all-time means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise—parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms all-time calculated to practise them lasting skilful.
"The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."
Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of aggregating volition exist left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, simply the millionaire volition be merely a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a nifty part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering information technology for the community far better than information technology could or would take done for itself. The best minds will thus accept reached a stage in the development of the race which information technology is conspicuously seen that at that place is no fashion of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save past using it year past year for the general expert. This day already dawns. But a picayune while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in groovy business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has non been withdrawn, and is left importantly at death for public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind many millions of bachelor wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no affair to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot accept with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: "The human who dies thus rich dies disgraced."
Such, in my stance, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the trouble of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men adept volition."
This essay was originally published in the Northward American Review (equally "Wealth"), Vol. CXLVIII, June 1889. Information technology was reprinted in Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, ed. Andrew C. Kirkland (Cambridge, Mass.: 1962).
Source: https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/
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