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LAD/Blog #22: Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth

My impression from Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth was that he was a Social Darwinist, but not in the traditional sense. Social Darwinism in Carnegie's time was generally filled with racial stigma. It was a philosophy that the society should be dominated by Whites, who were superior, and held up by Blacks, who Social Darwinists considered inferior. However, Carnegie did not seem to care about race. Rather, he addressed the economic side of social Darwinism. He felt that the rich deserved to be rich because they were adequately rewarded for their contributions to society by the free market system, seeing as the free market paid them. Therefore, he supported a laissez-faire economy vehemently because it adequately rewards those who deserve to be rewarded for their ingenuity and contributions. However, this posed the question of some people having so much money, that they did not use it all and either left it to the public or to their relatives after death. This meant that people who made no contributions to society were being rewarded simply for knowing somebody that did. He felt that this was wrong. Instead, he supported those with copious amounts of money using it to further better the society that rewarded them. This meant through philanthropy. He knew that the only way to increase the standard of living was for those who controlled the majority of the wealth to pursue doing so rather than squandering it after their deaths. His goal was to better society through using his money charitably and building infrastructure and housing and cities that would allow for a greater quality of life than before he came to the earth. It was this way that while he supported Social Darwinism in letting those who succeed keep their wealth, but also bettering society as a whole through their use of that wealth. One of my personal favorite quotes reminds me a lot about this. Jackie Chan stated that his son will receive none of his $130 million fortune because, "If he is capable, he would make his own money. If he is not capable, then  he will just be wasting mine".

Andrew Carnegie:
Image result for andrew carnegie
Jackie Chan:
Image result for Jackie Chan quote about leaving his money to his sons

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