Andrew Carnegie believed that the rich should come forward and take responsibility of their wealth. By saying this Carnegie means the wealthy should not be selfish and not just use their wealth to their own benefit.
According to Carnegie those that have acquired great wealth generally have superior experience and wisdom; therefore it is those men and women that are best suited to distribute charity. The wealthy will have the intelligence and experience to know what to do with their profits to benefit others in the community in a virtuous way.Since a majority of wealth does in fact go to a small concentrated amount of people, the question is why are these people better suited to distribute charity? These wealthy people have money not just for competence, but rather a surplus of money that they can use for a greater good. Carnegie explains there are three different modes of distribution a man can put to use.
The first mode described is to hand down their fortune to their first son. The second way is to simply hand over money to the underprivileged. The third mode is the best way of donating and according to Carnegie “Under (the third mode’s) sway we shall have an ideal state.”For the third mode the rich is to supply the less fortunate with the means to grow as people, to heighten ambitions, and raise their level of class through their own motivation.
Carnegie believes that the rich must supply the poor not with money directly to their pockets but rather create institutions, community centers, and programs to aid them in prospering on their own. This is done through things such as building a public library. This aids a man more than a couple of dollars ever could; this gives the impoverished the ability to enhance their learning and opportunities with no cost to them.An average man would not have the wealth to build an institution such as a library and would only have the wealth to buy a poor man a few books instead. My father once told me “you can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day or you can teach a man to fish and he can eat for the rest of his life.
” Instead of wasting their wealth to give a few books to the poor, the wealth should be spent on providing these people with a place where they can get as many books needed to help them prosper and better themselves.Carnegie states this is exactly why the distribution of charity should be left in the hands of the more experienced and wealthy. A more experienced wealthy man will realize this is the best way to help the poor prosper, where as an average person may only be able to give the underprivileged handouts. Carnegie believed that intelligence is necessary for wealth and because of the intelligence the wealthy have they are better equipped in distributing wealth to the community rather than letting the community distribute it themselves.To allow the community to distribute wealth they would prolong actually giving to society thus stalling progression. The community’s wealth as a whole is minuscule to the wealth of the upper few.
According to Carnegie, this means that these people lack the experience and knowledge needed to distribute charity to the poor in the best way possible. It is because of wealthy people buying into the third mode and continually giving back that the good life has been made possible for so many. Carnegie states to carry out the third mode of donating correctly you must have immense wealth and knowledge.For this reason the distribution of charity should be left in the hands of the wealthy. Carnegie saw himself along with many other wealthy men as a hero of working people, yet some considered him greedy.
Carnegie crushed his worker’s unions and slashed their wages, which inevitably made him rich. By the time he wrote The Gospel of Wealth, Carnegie was an established, successful millionaire. Those accusing him of being greedy may argue that the distribution of charity should not be left in the hands of someone who was repeatedly harsh towards his workers.They do often forget what Carnegie did with the money from slashed salaries. He donated over 350 million dollars to public causes, opening libraries, money for teachers, and funds to support peace.
In the end, he gave away roughly 90% of his own money to various causes. People may often question his “modes” and argue that the average person can carry out these ways effectively and it doesn't need to be left in the hands of the wealthy, but this is not the case. An average person will most likely not have the funds to carry out the third mode and the first two modes are not nearly as effective.If one were to carry out the first mode and hand down their fortune to their children, their children would have been given this at birth and may not appreciate what they are getting and may not understand what all is necessary to prosper and strive as an individual. This mode is a "misguided affection" and a bad idea according to Carnegie, because it could make the children think everything will just fall into their lap with no effort.
Some would also argue that giving money to man who has none is just as effective in helping them prosper. Carnegie describes this as the worst possible thing a man can do.To simply give money as charity to an underprivileged man could feed his indiscretions even more. There is no way to know if your handout will be spent on something that will help the man prosper or just wasted on senseless things.
This only stalls the growth of character and ambition within a person. Carnegie believes that everyone should work to earn what he or she has and no one should be just given anything. The wealthy few are providing the poor with the means to work for knowledge and belongings by using the third mode, where the average man could not.Andrew Carnegie concluded that it is the job of the wealthy men to set an example of living and spending for his descendants in order for their wisdom and experience on helping the poor prosper to be passed down. Those who have acquired the wisdom, experience, and wealth throughout their life know which actions will be beneficial to the poor more so than the people of the community as a whole.
The average man will also not have the funds to take charge of a project helping the community by Carnegie’s third mode. It is necessary for the wealthy to distribute charity to overall better the underprivileged and poor.
