gospel of wealth definition us history

gospel of wealth definition us history

The Gospel of Wealth: A Conceptual Analysis in US History

1. Introduction to the Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie has haunted the historical memory of the U.S. for more than a hundred years. His ghastly spectre rematerializes in every generation ready to be driven down. Yet it is hard to pin Carnegie down. His ideas will not stay put and turn into dust. His wealth refuses to be permanently redistributed. His eternal rest only makes him endlessly louder and destructive. The particular path of Carnegie is difficult to follow today. What is the connection between Carnegie and us mean when discussing the Gospel of Wealth? We are confronted with a self-contained “text” (one volume published in June 1889 and a revised edition in 1900) which Andrew Carnegie entitled The Gospel of Wealth. With the source text, but more importantly with the numerous secondary and tertiary references in both the scholarly literature and in the public discourse of the U.S., this article stands on the grounds to shed light on how a late 20th century society makes sense of Murdochian notions, ideas and narrativity. When we speak of The Gospel of Wealth we do not necessarily refer to what Carnegie called the Gospel of Wealth. At one level, we talk of a set of ideas and beliefs originating in that 1889 text. At another level, any particular transcript from and comment on this text is a further contribution to the Gospel of Wealth. We mean a particular system of meaning that circulates at any time and place which organizes concepts in a particular way. These conceptual structures advise men to do certain things, prevent other things from happening and accepting yet other things.

2. Historical Background and Context

Often, the period, particularly from the 1870s through the 1890s, is noted merely for the significant changes in the basic structure of industry and “navigational technology” that made such explosive economic growth possible. While these changes were revolutionary in their own right, there are other aspects of economic and social life that tend not to loom as large in the public’s recollection of the era—not the least of which is the heated debate during this period over issues of “social Darwinism,” the nature of rich and poor, the ability of the individual to influence their own economic situation, and the relationship between wealth and institutionalizing effective charity. The “Gospel of Wealth” as put forth by Andrew Carnegie was one conceptual pillar out of which to examine some of the most heated questions and criticisms of modern American industrial life.

The second half of the 19th century was a profound time of growth and expansion in the United States. It was a period marked both by the explosive growth of industry and increased per capita wealth, and by severe depressions and widespread poverty. It was a time of territorial and military expansion and debate over the question of overseas empire, and at the same time, increasing calls for social reform, labor organization, and for the rights of women and minorities. All of these activities and aspects of social change, as well as the relationship of capitalism to these more “social” issues, had some common and related themes that are worthy of our attention and discussion.

3. Key Principles and Tenets of the Gospel of Wealth

The Gospel of Wealth was not an unalloyed panegyric of the rich. It contained a fairly extensive critique of their behavior, for, as Carnegie wrote, “I claim more for the inheritance of American rich men than professional begging, even when accompanied by some tears. Such an inheritance, when devoted to the elevation of mankind, is the best of all forms of socialism, except in very rare cases. The man who lives to spend only what he has inherited is simply the caretaker of wealth for future citizens. Some inequality is essential for the true formation of character,” he believed, “and heritability, when a man had enough sense to select a suitable wife, was one of the circumstances that bred character, whereas the privately provided welfare state created an irresponsible and acquiescent class.”

The vision of philanthropy, society, and governance at the heart of the Gospel of Wealth provided a critique of the existing economic system and dictated forms of giving intended to repair its excesses. The vast industrial system that had emerged in the late nineteenth century had, at one and the same time, the force to deliver material abundance to American society and a growing number of Americans the wealth—and delegation to control that system. The system, which had made financiers like Carnegie wealthy, had created a society so vastly polarized that the spending of government could erase only some of the most visible signs in the form of urban poverty and unresponsive policies of industrial action in the form of labor militancy and violence. The solution now seemed to lie in the hands of the wealthy men themselves, through their philanthropy.

4. Criticism and Contemporary Relevance

This criticism is, of course, a rather stylized version of contemporary capitalism; but problems alleged of the Gospel of Wealth remain. Carnegie assumed, for one thing, that the culture of private philanthropy could survive indefinitely, despite considerable evidence that it is eroding. Indeed, Goldberg and Colin suggest the abandonment of the Gospel of Wealth, subject to strict conditions, may actually be good for commercial society; it would encourage a focus on the root causes of social, political, and economic problems, rather than the symptoms. Reformulating the basis of corporate social responsibility in the US through a return to enlightened self-interest would, they argue, not only make business organizations more effective; it might also help to restore public trust in the good faith of business. Such trust, one would hope, would also extend beyond the US; for the corporate predators and welfare whores views of thinkers as diverse as Hedrick Smith and Mohammed Yunis suggest that American capitalism today is trading too much on the historical legacy of Andrew Carnegie.

One of the issues Andrew Carnegie did not specify was how income, that is, in his view, unearned, should be treated. In contemporary American capitalism, a world where the average income of the business-owning class is ten times greater than the average wage-earning family, it is arguable that there is, relatively speaking, more income today in which individuals have no moral entitlement; that is, where they have contributed nothing economically or socially commensurate with the amount of money they have received. The criticism of the Gospel of Wealth, in other words, is that it seems to validate a capitalism increasingly characterized by a display of conspicuous, unearned consumption, a characteristic the socialist economist Michal Kalecki claimed encourages power-seeking and power-enjoyment for power-drunk capitalists visually enjoying their women and mistresses or viperishly buying and selling newspapers.

5. Conclusion and Implications for Modern Society

Some readers may view the statement made by Andrew Carnegie as proof of the innocence of ideology present in the contemporary documents. His evident altruism and munificence support these ideas. However, if this notion of the Gospel of Wealth is analyzed in legal and economic terms, its deeply liberal bias emerges. Andrew Carnegie’s main contribution, with the obvious exception of his virtue and grandiosity, lies in saying what no one else had said, at least openly. Carnegie unveiled the true end of the capitalist utopia in liberal society: the well-being of the propertied. Thus, only when analyzing the legal and economic implications of such an exhortation can the novelty of this conceptual base for contemporary discussions on the separation between ownership and control in the public companies or the corporate social responsibility be grasped.

In the post-Communist era, the ‘American Dream’ attracted global attention, though globalization has in recent years begun to be seen as a different phenomenon, based on the free movement of the means of production and free trade. The Gospel of Wealth, however, started a number of new debate lines in its time, including whether the aim of enterprise was the profit of the stockholders or the well-being of the workers. This was not only an ethical, but a truly conceptual challenge for society, a distinction that has inspired philosophers and scientists from both economics and sociology. In fact, the personal example of many of the exponents of the Gospel of Wealth, Rockefeller or Carnegie for instance, was followed to some extent by several business leaders in the 20th century.