Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel Of Wealth

I believe we live in a society where the opportunity to be successful is supposed to be available to everyone yet isn’t. Each individual is supposed to have the opportunity to surpass their potential and become the best possible version of themselves yet they don’t. These days, success means graduating high school, going to college, and getting a well-paying job. But the opportunity to go to college isn’t available to everyone making it hard for them to get a well paying job and earn the money they need to survive. In his 1889 review, Andrew Carnegie promoted what he called “The Gospel of Wealth”. He believed it was the obligation of those who accumulated to money to use it to promote the advancement of society. Like Carnegie, I believe that it is the responsibility of the 1% to use their wealth to aid the poor and not to buy lavish but pointless materialistic items. I believe that they should take it upon themselves to ensure that those who work hard will receive the opportunities …show more content…
We can deflect the penalties of those who have done ill and throw them on those who have done better. We can take the rewards from those who have done better and give them to those who have done worse. We shall thus lessen inequalities. We shall favor the survival of the unfittest, and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty” (V.O.F. 34-35). To Sumner, the only way to lessen society’s injustices was to eradicate liberty. He believed that the poor were in their situations because they were weak and didn’t work hard enough; that the rich were the best the world had to offer. Sumner was wrong. Many poor people are in their situations because of circumstances beyond their control. Their lives are not a result of their weakness or inability to work hard, but are a consequence of the world we live in-a world in which corruption and exploitation are praised while fairness and honesty are frowned