Lesson 15: In Progress Review and an Introduction to Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth”
Lesson Objectives:
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Address shortfalls in semicolon usage.
Identify shortfalls as identified in Block 2 – HWE 2.
Remediating shortfalls associated with the writing process.
Remediating shortfalls associated with correctness, style, substance, and organization.
Begin discussing “The Gospel of Wealth.”
Texts:
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“Semi-Colon (29)” LBH 443-451.
Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth,” WI 387-404.
Pedagogical Rationale: After briefly discussing effective semi-colon usage, this lesson focuses
upon a discussion of Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth” in support of HWE 3.
Scheme of Maneuver:
o
Common semicolon usage shortfalls:
o
“Use a semicolon between main clauses not joined by and, but, or another coordinating
conjunction” (LBH 445).
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The drug causes many side effects; some leave the patient quite ill.

Carnegie’s claims in “The Gospel of Wealth,” can seem more than a bit selfaggrandizing; he was, after all, one of the world’s richest men.
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It seems intuitive that Carnegie would refute many of Marx’s primary philosophical
tenets; Carnegie was, after all, an inveterate capitalist.
o
“Use a semicolon between main clauses related by however, for example, and so on” (LBH
447).
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Carnegie and Marx argue from two completely different perspectives; however, they
employ very similar rhetorical strategies.
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Critics might argue that Carnegie practiced Machiavellian tactics; for example, he
certainly profited from insider trading.
o
“Use semicolons to separate items in a series when they are long or contain commas” (LBH
448).
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Carnegie owned a majority interest in a number of corporations, including Stony
Farm in Venango County, Pennsylvania; the Keystone Bridge Company; the J. Edgar
Thomson Steel Works, named after his former boss and mentor at the Pennsylvania
Railroad; the Union Iron Mills; the Hartman Steel Works; and the Frick Coke
Company.
o
Semicolons are valuable tools in your “grammar toolbox; however, the overuse of semicolons
can be distracting. Therefore:
o
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Use semicolons ONLY as required.
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Use semicolons sparingly.
Who was Andrew Carnegie?
o Born in 1835 in Scotland. Immigrated to Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1848. Died in 1919.
o Beginning at the age of 13, he worked a succession of menial jobs: factory worker,
bookkeeper, messenger boy, and a number of positions in the Ohio Telegraph Company.
o Lacking formal education, Carnegie taught himself through prolific reading.
o By 18, Carnegie worked as a secretary/telegraph operator for Thomas Scott, the future
president of Pennsylvania Railroad, then the largest corporation in the world. He rose rapidly,
becoming the superintendent of the Pittsburgh area division of the company. Established
connections with J. Edgar Thomson (then the railroad’s President).
o Profited wildly from insider trading, with Scott serving as his mentor.
o Consistently built his capital from these trades/investments – almost all of them in industries
related to the railroads (iron, bridges, steel, etc.)
o Opened his own business building bridges, supplying rails, etc. to the Pennsylvania Railroad
with Thomson and Scott as primary investors. One of his best investments at the time was a
significant interest in T.T. Woodruff’s sleeping car company.
o Just before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff’s and George M.
Pullman’s sleeping car company. His wealth continued to grow.
o During the 19th C. the rail and telegraph lines were inextricably linked. As the Civil War
commenced, Carnegie was appointed Superintendent of the Military Railways and the
Union’s telegraph lines. Carnegie’s Civil War experiences reinforced in his mind the
unmatched value and profits to be had in heavy industry.
o Carnegie’s portfolio continued to grow throughout the Civil War. He soon expanded into
corporate farming, iron works, and oil. He founded the Keystone Bridge Company, which
supplied bridges, iron, and rails to the Pennsylvania Railroad – his largest customer.
o By the late 1880s he built the Carnegie Steel Company into the world’s largest manufacturer
of pig iron, steel rails, and coke.
o He soon expanded his holdings, owning majority stakes in a number of different companies –
all of which held dominant positions in their markets.
o Carnegie retired in 1901 after J.P. Morgan purchased a majority of Carnegie’s holdings and
merged them to create US Steel, then the largest company in the world.
o Carnegie grossed over $225.5 million from the deal (about $6 billion in today’s dollars.)
o Carnegie quickly turned to philanthropy in his retirement years. He funded everything from
swimming pools to colleges and universities to, most notably, public libraries.
o Carnegie still owned a number of businesses – including iron ore fields, newspapers, and
other concerns.
o
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Carnegie turned to writing in order to publicize his political views. He was an avid antiRoyalist and wrote often comparing the English and American economies and political
systems.
o Carnegie published “Wealth,” in the June 1889 issue of North American Review. It was
published in England in the Pall Mall Gazette under the title, “The Gospel of Wealth.”
 In brief, “The Gospel of Wealth”:
 Argues wealthy industrialists should spend the first half of their lives
building wealth and the second half committed to philanthropic pursuits. In
this manner, he believed, the wealthy were the “best” and “most qualified”
arbiters of society’s needs.
 Decries inheritance as a sin and counterproductive to society’s best interests.
 Insists a vast majority of society is ill-equipped to handle vast wealth.
 Approves of high tax rates for inheritances.
 Maintains that the wealthy should manage their fortunes while they live,
distributing funds to charities and causes in which they believe.
o At the time of his death, Carnegie had given away over $350.5 million (almost $4.3 billion
today) in philanthropy.
“The Gospel of Wealth”:
o
“The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood
may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship” (391).
o
Claims the “conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within
the past few hundred years” (392).
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Uses as an example, a comparison between Native Americans and “where civilized
man…was” hundreds of years before – with the chief and the common Native
American living virtually the same lives, with the same amount of relative “wealth”
(392).
o
“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” (392).
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“This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial”
(392).
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How so? Why does Carnegie suggest that this wide separation between rich and poor
is good and “beneficial”?
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How might this vast gulf be counter-indicative of the “harmonious relationship”
Carnegie hopes to create (391)?
o
“It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race that 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 so” (392).
o
Examines the process whereby industrialization has ostensibly created the means for social
and political (if not economic) equality.
o
Argues that the poor in the late 19th century had access to goods/services/artifacts that even
the wealthiest did not in previous centuries. “The poor enjoy what the rich could not before
afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more
comforts than the farmer 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 King could then obtain” (393).
o
Gulf between employer and laborer / haves and have nots:
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“We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting
house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer
is little better than a myth” (393).
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“All intercourse between them is at an end” (393).
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“Rigid Castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual mistrust”
(393).
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“Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything
disparaging in regard to it” (393).
o
“…while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it
insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as
conditions 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 being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress
of the race” (393).
o
“…there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the
manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for organization
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 conditions” (393).
o
Justification for horrific working conditions and low pay? : “[G]reat manufacturing or
commercial concern[s]” must “either go forward or fall behind: to stand still is impossible”
(394).
o
Argument: Free market capitalism is good. Those who excel upon the free market are, based
upon the laws of Social Darwinism, the most fit to accumulate wealth and oversee its
distribution in the benefit of society as a whole, for “[i]t is a law that men possessed of his
peculiar talent for affairs, under the free play of economic forces, must of necessity soon be
in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is
as beneficial for the race as the others’ (394).
o
Counter-Argument: Countering Marx and other socialist-leaning philosophies:
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“The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be
regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for
civilization took its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to
his incompetent and lazy fellow, “if thou dost now sow, thou shalt not reap,” and thus
ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees” (394).
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“[T]he sacredness of property civilization itself depends…[upon] the right of the
laborer to his hundreds of dollars in the savings-bank, and equally the legal right of
the millionaire to his millions” (394).
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“Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those
who have the ability and energy to produce it” (394).
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“Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and
generation” (395).
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“We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because
he failed to reach our ideal as to favor the destruction of Individualism, Private
Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these
are the highest results of human experience” (395).
o
Having established the “right” and “responsibility” of the wealthy to administer much of
society’s wealth, Carnegie then moves on to address exactly how this administration and
distribution should occur:
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“What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which
civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few” (395)?
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“It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by
many years of effort, the returns from which are required for the comfortable
maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence,
which it should be the aim of all to acquire” (395).
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Establishes and then critiques the “three modes in which surplus wealth can be
disposed of”:
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1) “It can be left to the families of the decedents” (395).
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2) “[I]t can be bequeathed for public purposes” (395).
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3) “[I]t can be administered during their lives by its possessors” (395).
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Carnegie despises 1) as “injudicious” (395), minimizes the impact of 2), and
favors 3).
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Favors leaving only a moderate inheritance as any more would result in idleness.
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“There are instances of millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being
rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the very salt of
the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare” (396).
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“[L]eaving wealth at death for public uses” works only “provided a man is content to
wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world” (396).
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Such bequests “become only monuments of his folly” as “it requires the
exercise of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as
to be really beneficial to the community” (397).
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“By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish
millionaire’s unworthy life” (397).
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There is, according to Carnegie, “only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this
we have 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” (398).
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“It is founded upon the present most intense individualism…” (398).
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An “ideal state,” Carnegie argues, is one “in which the surplus wealth of the few will
become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the
common good, 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” (398).
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In other words – it is best for society as a whole if wealthy industrialists
reserve their wealth for themselves rather than paying their employees more
– because the wealthy ostensibly know what is best for the employee in the
bigger picture.
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Carnegie continues, “[m]uch of this sum, if distributed in small quantities
among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite,
some of it in excess, and it may be doubted whether even the part put to the
best use, that of adding to the comforts of the home, would have yielded
results for the race…” (398)
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“Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best
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” (399).
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“…the duty of the man of Wealth: first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious
living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate
wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus
revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which is called upon to
administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer, and strictly bound as
a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated
to produce the most beneficial results for the community” (399).
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The man of wealth is, in essence, “the mere agent and trustee 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” (399).
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o
“Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon” (400).
Carnegie’s thoughts on charity:
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“One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate
charity” (400).
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“Of every thousand dollars spent in so-called charity to-day, it is probable that $950
is unwisely spent” (400).
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“In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help
themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may
do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but
rarely or never to do all” (401).
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“Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms-giving. 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 change” (401).
o
“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” (402).
o
Common Themes: With great wealth comes great responsibility. The wealthy have an
obligation to use their wealth for the benefit of society at large. The wealthy are best suited
for addressing society’s needs and shortfalls. The wealthy should apply the same rigor, vigor,
and competence managing their wealth that they employed while building their wealth. The
wealthy not only deserve their great wealth; the widely disparate distance between have’s and
have not’s is actually beneficial for society.
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Looking Ahead: Lesson 16 – Introduction to Writing for Online Publication
o Reich, “Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer,” WI 419-437.
o “Writing Online,” LBH 828-839