The Gospel of Wealth
The Gospel of Wealth (dt. The Gospel of Wealth ) is an original 1889 entitled Wealth in the North American Review published essay of the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie . With the Carnegie Steel Company he had made a fortune through steel and was considered the richest man in the world at the time.
content
The Gospel of Wealth is a plea for philanthropy . Carnegie considers donating to charity a moral duty. He emphasizes the responsibility that wealth brings with it, referring to Christian values. He rejects decadence, however. The rich should act as trustees of the poor (“the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor”). He should use what Carnegie believes is superior knowledge and experience for the community , since he is better able to administer the money (“administering it for the community [does] far better than it could or would have done for itself”).
He advocates support especially for people who help themselves and are worthy of support. Vices, on the other hand, should not be supported by alms.
Carnegie sees the unequal distribution of wealth and the extreme contrasts between rich and poor as a problem of his time. But he by no means rejects capitalism itself. This is the basis of the material development, which has brought better living conditions. Compared with the disadvantages for people as a whole, the advantages of competition are predominant. Andrew Carnegie argues that wealth in the hands less through the system of capitalism obliges the profiteers of the system to give something back to society. The day will come when the public judgment of a man who dies with an accumulated fortune in the millions without first using it for the benefit of the community is: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” (“The man who so rich dies, dies in shame ”).
Reception today
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were inspired by Carnegie's essay The Gospel of Wealth for their The Giving Pledge , an initiative launched in 2010 to encourage The World's Billionaires to donate money to charity .
swell
- The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and his Essay The Gospel of Wealth, with a new Introduction by Gordon Hunter, Signet Classics 2006, ISBN 978-0451530387 .
- Andrew Carnegie: The truth about wealth and money, Oesch Verlag, Zurich 2000, ISBN 978-3858335814 .
- Andrew Carnegie: Wealth
- German translation of the Gospel of Wealth in Cicero magazine , accessed on July 22, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Andrew Carnegie: The truth about wealth and money, Oesch Verlag, Zurich 2000, p. 47
- ↑ Nikolaus Piper: Money - Power - Hatred. One percent is enough to live on , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung from July 12, 2014.
- ^ Spreading Gospels of Wealth: America's Billionaire Giving Pledgers are Forming a Movement , in: The Economist, May 19, 2012, last accessed August 9, 2014.