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Originally titled simply "Wealth" and published in theNorth American Review in June 1889, Andrew Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" is considered a foundational document in the field of philanthropy. Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during i'due south lifetime, and this essay includes one of his well-nigh famous quotes, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." Carnegie's bulletin continues to resonate with and inspire leaders and philanthropists around the world.

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"The Gospel of Wealth"

By Andrew Carnegie

The trouble of our age is the proper assistants of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may yet demark together the rich and poor in harmonious human relationship. The weather of human life have non only been inverse, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In quondam days there was little difference betwixt the dwelling house, wearing apparel, food, and surround 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 only like the others in external appearance, and even inside the divergence was trifling between information technology and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the alter which has come with civilisation. This alter, however, is not to be deplored, just welcomed as highly benign. 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 all-time 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 in that location tin be no Mæcenas. The "good one-time times " were non skilful old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated so as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would exist disastrous to both—non 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 fabricated the best of. It is a waste matter of time to criticize the inevitable.

It is like shooting fish in a barrel to see how the modify has come. One illustration volition serve for almost every phase of the crusade. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, as stimulated and enlarged past the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly manufactures were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side past side, the latter living with the chief, and therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to be masters, at that place was little or no change in their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was, essentially social equality, and even political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had and then little or no political voice in the Country.

"The poor enjoy what the rich could not earlier afford. What were the luxuries take become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more than comforts than the landlord had a few generations agone."

Simply the inevitable result of such a way of industry was crude manufactures at loftier prices. Today the world obtains bolt of excellent quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would take accounted incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor relish what the rich could not before beget. What were the luxuries take become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations agone. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and meliorate housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the King could so obtain.

The cost nosotros pay for this salutary alter is, no doubt, great. Nosotros assemble thousands of operatives in the manufacturing plant, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or aught, and to whom the employer is footling better than a myth. All intercourse betwixt them is at an finish. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds common distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and gear up 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 ofttimes there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital letter and labor, betwixt rich and poor. Man society loses homogeneity.

The cost which society pays for the police force of competition, like the cost it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is too swell; just the advantage of this law are also greater nevertheless, for it is to this constabulary that we owe our wonderful cloth development, which brings improved conditions in its railroad train. But, whether the law be beneficial or not, we must say of it, equally we say of the change in the atmospheric condition of men to which we take referred: It is here; nosotros cannot evade it; no substitutes for information technology have been plant; and while the law may exist sometimes difficult for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every section. We have and welcome therefore, as weather to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of surroundings, the concentration of concern, industrial and commercial, in the easily of a few, and the law of competition between these, every bit existence not just beneficial, merely essential for the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that at that place must be great scope for the do 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 affair where or under what laws or weather. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services tin be obtained equally a partner as not but the first consideration, but such every bit to render the question of his upper-case letter scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital letter; while, without the special talent required, capital letter soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and estimating but elementary interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accrue wealth. Nor is in that location whatsoever middle ground which such men tin occupy, because the neat manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital presently becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward or autumn behind: to stand nevertheless is incommunicable. It is a status essential for its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, information technology should make profit. It is a police, as certain as whatsoever of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, under the costless play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more acquirement than tin 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 status of the race is better with these than information technology has been with whatever others which have been tried. Of the consequence of any new substitutes proposed we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present weather is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its get-go from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy young man, "If m dost not sow, thou shalt non reap," and thus concluded archaic Communism by separating the drones from the bees. Ane who studies this discipline will soon be brought face to face with the decision that upon the sacredness of holding civilization itself depends--the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and every bit the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. To these who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism the reply, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous solar day to the present time has resulted from its deportation. Not evil, but good, has come up to the race from the aggregating of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it. Simply fifty-fifty if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its nowadays foundation, Individualism,—that it is a nobler ideal that human 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, merely for each other,—even admit all this, and a sufficient respond is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of eons, even if information technology were adept to change it, which nosotros cannot know.

It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Fifty-fifty if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable at present; with the next pace possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we tin can profitably or peradventure accomplish is to curve the universal tree of humanity a footling in the management most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of homo considering he failed to attain our ideal as favor the devastation of Individualism, Private Property, the Police force of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of human being experience, the soil in which society and then 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 withal accomplished.

We commencement, and so, 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 atmospheric condition as they be, the situation tin be surveyed and pronounced proficient. The question so arises,—and, if the foregoing exist correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal,—What is the proper way of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the easily 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 hither spoken of, not moderate sums saved past many years of effort, the returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and didactics of families. This is not wealth, merely only competence which it should be the aim of all to acquire.

There are only three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It tin be left to the families of the decedents; or it tin be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, information technology tin exist administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the offset and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let u.s.a. in plough consider each of these modes. The first is the virtually 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 championship are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The status of this form in Europe to-24-hour interval teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have get impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the value of state. Even in Great Uk the strict law of entail has been establish inadequate to maintain the condition of an hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the easily of the stranger. Nether republican institutions the division of property among the children is much fairer, just the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is washed from affection, is it non misguided affection? Observation teaches that, mostly speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the land. Beyond providing for the married woman 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 peachy sums bequeathed oftener piece of 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.

Information technology is not suggested that men who have failed to brainwash 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, so, of grade, 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 globe, every bit valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; however information technology is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the usual issue of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful human being must before long say, "I would equally soon go out to my son a expletive every bit the almighty dollar," and admit to himself that information technology is non the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.

As to the 2nd 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 human is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much skillful in the earth. Noesis of the results of legacies bequeathed is non calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good beingness achieved. The cases are not few in which the existent object sought past the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used every bit to become but monuments of his folly. Information technology is well to remember that it requires the exercise of non less power than that which acquired the wealth to utilise information technology and so every bit to be actually beneficial to the community. Too 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 past the customs to which he but 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 exist wondered at that such bequests seem so mostly to lack the blessing.

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a auspicious indication of the growth of a salutary change in public stance. The State of Pennsylvania now takes—subject to some exceptions—one-tenth of the belongings left past 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 keep hoarding nifty sums all their lives, the proper employ of which for - public ends would work good to the customs, should exist made to experience 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'southward unworthy life.

Information technology 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 manor which should get at his decease to the public through the bureau of the country, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, get-go at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly equally the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, equally of Shylock'south, at least

"The other one-half
Comes to the privy coffer of the land."

This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich human to nourish to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that lodge should e'er take in view, every bit existence 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 accrue, for to the form whose appetite it is to leave bully fortunes and be talked about later on their death, it will attract even more attention, and, indeed, exist a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.

There remains, and so, merely one mode of using bully fortunes; only in this we have the true antidote for the temporary diff distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor—a reign of harmony—another platonic, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the farther evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the nowadays about intense individualism, and the race is projected to put it in practice by degree whenever it pleases. Nether its sway we shall have an platonic land, in which the surplus wealth of the few volition become, in the best sense the property of the many, considering administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can exist made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if information technology had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to concord that peachy sums gathered past 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 amongst them through the grade of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Plant, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York non possessed of ways, 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 grade of distribution, being for work washed and not for charity, we can class some estimate of the possibilities for the comeback of the race which lie embedded in the nowadays police 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 backlog, and it may be doubted whether fifty-fifty the office 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. Allow the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.

We might even go so far as to take another case, that of Mr. Tilden's heritance of five millions of dollars for a costless library in the city of New York, but in referring to this one cannot assist maxim involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the terminal years of his ain life to the proper assistants of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. Simply let usa assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally become the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the earth contained in books will exist open to all forever, without money and without price. Because the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit accept been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in pocket-sized sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubtfulness 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 take it in their ability during their lives to decorated themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows volition derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their ain lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, non by such imitation of the life of Christ every bit Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, past recognizing the changed atmospheric condition of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which nosotros live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and pedagogy, just laboring in a different style.

"This, then, is held to exist the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to fix an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance."

This, so, 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 subsequently doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him only equally trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound every bit a matter of duty to administer in the style which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the almost 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, feel and power to administer, doing for them better than they would or could practise for themselves.

We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to go out to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. At that place must be different standards for different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to proper name verbal amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good gustation, 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 hither. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If whatsoever family be chiefly known for brandish, for extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if these exist its chief distinctions, nosotros have no difficulty in estimating its nature or civilization. So likewise in regard to the apply or corruption of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the concluding, whether they administer or bequeath.

The verdict rests with the all-time and most aware public sentiment. The community will surely guess and its judgments will not often exist wrong.

The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put accept 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 equally to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so chosen clemency 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 every bit he was coming to visit the firm 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 exist spent improperly. This human being professed to exist a disciple of Herbert Spencer; withal the quarter-dollar given that nighttime will probably work more injury than all the money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will practice good. He only gratified his own feelings, saved himself from badgerer,—and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life, for in all respects he is near worthy.

In bestowing charity, the main consideration should exist to assist those who will help themselves; to provide part of the ways past which those who want to ameliorate may do and so; to give those who desire to employ the aids by which they may rising; to assist, only rarely or never to exercise all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require aid. The really valuable men of the race never practice, except in cases of blow or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own noesis where temporary help can do genuine adept, and these he will non overlook. Only the amount which can be wisely given by the private for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is equally conscientious and as broken-hearted non to aid the unworthy equally he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more and then, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than past relieving virtue.

The rich man is thus most restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the all-time means of benefiting the community is to place inside its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise—parks, and ways of recreation, by which men are helped in trunk and heed; works of art, certain to give pleasance and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will meliorate the general status 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.

"The human being who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to exist solved. The laws of accumulation will be left complimentary; the laws of distribution gratis. Individualism will continue, just the millionaire will be just a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a great role of the increased wealth of the customs, only administering it for the community far ameliorate than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus take reached a stage in the evolution of the race which it is clearly seen that at that place is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it yr past yr for the full general skilful. This day already dawns. Only a trivial while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may dice sharers in great business organization enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for public uses, yet the human who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administrate during life, will pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no thing to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot accept with him. Of such every bit these the public verdict will then be: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Such, in my opinion, is the truthful Gospel apropos Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the trouble of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on globe, among men good will."

---

This essay was originally published in the North American Review (as "Wealth"), Vol. CXLVIII, June 1889. It was reprinted in Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, ed. Andrew C. Kirkland (Cambridge, Mass.: 1962).

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Source: https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/