Andrew Carnegie – the Gospel of Wealth

If you were worth 4.8 billion dollars, would you share your wealth and power for good or bad? Andrew Carnegie gave his wealth to many churches and hospitals and believed the division between rich and poor was unacceptable. However, he did not give full effort into helping the issue. Carnegie started his journey to become one of the richest men in the world when he was just 13 years old, he moved to America from Scotland. Carnegie started working in factories and worked his way up; his list of connections grew as he worked at different places, and eventually he opened his very own steel plant. Later on, JP Morgan bought Carnegie Steel for $480 million, making Andrew Carnegie one of the world's richest men Andrew Carnegie is known for being the sympathetic, or more generous captains of industry, but there were still downfalls to his positives.

Carnegie had a great amount of wealth, he could've given better job options, better pay, and given back more to his community. If Carnegie was truly trying to minimize the gap between wealthy and poor, he would have raised wages and better working conditions. If done that, he would have prevented the Homestead Strike. The Homestead Strike was a strike between Carnegie and Frick Steel Plant employees. The Unions wanted higher wages, shorter hours and were treated as non-human. Carnegie did not agree to what the union was asking of; he didn't want confrontation, he wanted to wait until they were suffering from starvation and could not pay for necessities so they would come crawling back. Carnegie and other Captains of Industry used untruthful ways of gaining their wealth and keeping it that way. Overtime, they paid politicians to keep the distribution of wealth unequal. The practices he served were unethical, yet worked because of the power he had over the US.

Andrew Carnegie used his money for good and tried his hardest to create a better quality of life for the poor. In Carnegie's life, it is believed that he donated 350 million dollars. Comparing to other Captains of Industry during the time, such as Vanderbilt, he only donated one million to his own college. When looking at these men, this is a big deal there money is what compares them to one another and giving away that money, even with having so much of it meant a lot.

Over 30,000 libraries were built, and education opportunities grew in the US and Scotland that are still used today. Carnegie did not believe in charity, but he did believe in education. Carnegie was making people more opportunities what could not have been there if it were not for his wealth.

Although Andrew Carnegie held low wages and poor working conditions, so did everywhere else. Carnegie was lowering the cost of production and building the economy.He used his riches in many positive ways such as libraries, which were very uncommon at the time, and hospitals which are obviously a necessity. Likewise Carnegie still left a lasting impact on the economy that even today is clear, the wealth gap continues to increase rapidly, in America specifically, with the top one wealthiest percent owns over one third of America's total wealth. Andrew Carnegie used his riches for good in the US and created more opportunities for people even if they were not the best.

The wealth gap between low class and high class is now bigger than ever, the top wealthiest 1 percent of america owns over one third of the countries wealth and over one third of the United States struggles being below the poverty line, living in slums and poverty.

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