The Gospel of Wealth
BY ANDREW CARNEGIE
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. The conditions of human life have not only been
changed, but 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 like the others in external appearance, and
even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of
his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage
of the laborer with us to-day measures the change which has come with
civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as
highly beneficial. It 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 so. Much better this great irregularity than universal
squalor. Without wealth there can be no Mæcenas. The "good old times " were
not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as
today. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both—not the least
so to him who serves—and would sweep away civilization with it. But
whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter,
and therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is a waste of time to
criticize the inevitable.
It is easy to see how the change has come. One illustration will 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 industry, as
stimulated and enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. 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 be masters, there was little or no
change in their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine
succeeding apprentices. There was, substantially social equality, and even
political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then little or
no political voice in the State.
But the inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was crude
articles at high prices. Today the world obtains commodities of excellent
quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have
deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced
similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. 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 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 King could then
obtain.
The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. 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. All intercourse between them
is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds
mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to
credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the
employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the
rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the
employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and
poor. Human society loses homogeneity.
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it
pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantage of this
law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful
material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But,
whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change
in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot
evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and 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.
Having accepted these, it follows that 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. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose
services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but
such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for
such men soon create capital; 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, because the great manufacturing
or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital
soon becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward or fall behind: to stand still
is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that it
should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital,
it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that
men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, 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.
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 any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes
proposed we cannot be sure. 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 not sow, thou shalt not reap," and thus ended primitive
Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this
subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the
sacredness of property civilization itself depends--the right 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 good, has come to the race from the
accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that
produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the
race to discard its present foundation, Individualism,—that it is a nobler
ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a
brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, realizing
Swedenborg's idea of Heaven, where, as he says, the angels derive their
happiness, not from laboring for self, but for each other,—even admit all this,
and a sufficient answer is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It
necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of eons, even if it
were good to change it, which we cannot know.
It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable
theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum.
Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step 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 little in the direction most favorable to the
production 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 ideal as 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, the soil in which society so far has
produced the best fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws
sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the Idealist, they are,
nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all
that humanity has yet accomplished.
We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best
interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the
few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be
surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises,—and, if the
foregoing be correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal,—
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 ? And it is of
this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will 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 comfortable
maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only
competence which it should be the aim of all to acquire.
There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of.
It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for
public purposes; or, finally, it 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 us in turn consider
each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchical
countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the
first 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 class in Europe to-day teaches the futility of such hopes or
ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or
from the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict law of
entail has been found inadequate to maintain the status of an hereditary
class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the stranger. Under
republican institutions the division of property among 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, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened.
Neither is it 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 bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than for the good of the
recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the
members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use
of their means.
It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to
earn a livelihood shall cast them adrift in poverty. If any man has seen fit to
rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly
commendable, 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. 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; still it is
not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the
usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man
must shortly say, "I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty
dollar," and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but
family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.
As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses,
it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a
man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the
world. Knowledge of the results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to
inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished.
The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not
attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many
cases the bequests are so used as to become only monuments of his folly. It is
well to remember that 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. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is to be extolled
for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked by the
community to which he only leaves wealth at death. Men who leave vast
sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all,
had they been able to take 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 be
wondered at that such bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing.
The growing disposition to tax 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—
one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the
British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties; and,
most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of
taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all
their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the
community, 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 state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's
unworthy life.
It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction.
Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estate which
should go 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 as the amounts swell,
until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least
The other 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 end that society
should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people.
Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and
render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class whose ambition it is
to leave great fortunes and be talked about after their death, it will attract
even more attention, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition to have
enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.
There remains, then, 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. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and
the race is projected to put it in practice by degree whenever it pleases.
Under its sway we shall have 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 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. Even the poorest can be made to see 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 valuable to them
than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling
amounts through the course of many years.
If we consider what results flow 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 have arisen for the good of the
masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the
form of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done
and not for charity, we can form 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 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, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing
and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Let
the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.
We might even go so far as to take another instance, that of Mr.
Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New
York, but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily, how much
better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper
administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor
any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us
assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally become the means of giving to this
city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in
books will be open to all forever, without money and without price.
Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and
around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit have been better
promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through
the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism
must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Most of those who think will
probably entertain no doubt whatever.
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. The highest
life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as
Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing
the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this
spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring
for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but
laboring in a different manner.
This, then, is held to be 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 he is called upon 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—the man
of wealth thus becoming 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.
We 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. There must be different standards for
different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact
amounts or actions as it 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 rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men
or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon.
If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table,
equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if
these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature
or culture. So likewise in regard to the use 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 last, whether they administer or
bequeath.
The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment.
The community will surely judge and its judgments will not 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 so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the
unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to-day, it is
probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very
evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic
books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man
who approached him as 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 be
spent improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; yet
the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all
the money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true
charity will do good. He only gratified his own feelings, saved himself from
annoyance,—and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst
actions of his life, for in all respects he is most worthy.
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 use the aids by which
they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual
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 change. Every one has, of
course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary
assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the
amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is
necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected
with each. He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not
to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so,
for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by
relieving virtue.
The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of
Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator
Stanford, and others, who know that the best 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 best calculated to do them lasting good.
Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of
accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will
continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a
season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but
administering it for the community far better than it could or would have
done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the
development of the race which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of
disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into
whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This
day already dawns. But a little while, and although, without incurring the
pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in great business enterprises from
which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at
death for public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind many millions of
available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away "
unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross
which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then
be: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."
Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience
to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor,
and to bring "Peace on earth, among men good will."
