Was Andrew Carnegie A Robber Baron

During times of hardship and triumph, one tends to search for someone or something that gives hope that things will soon be okay or someone to blame for such misfortune. In the late nineteenth century America experienced a noticeable population growth with a lack of infrastructure that supported such growth causing quite the dilemma. Most Americans were working insane hours for low minimum wages just to take care of their families and get by. Andrew Carnegie was a man who believed that there was no middle ground, either you were very wealthy or you were poor. His drive to be successful and to make money led him to be viewed as someone who took advantage of the average American worker by impoverishing the working class. However, after he died it was apparent that he truly believed in the wealthy having an obligation to distribute their money in a way that would promote and benefit the welfare and happiness of the common man, thus giving the people hope and a chance to realize that he truly cared about the general welfare of America. …show more content…
It all depends on if one is viewing the way he became wealthy or if they’re viewing what he did with that wealth as his defining moment. Looking back on all he did, it is apparent that he always had great reasoning behind his actions. In Carnegie’s essay that was published in the North American Review, Wealth, he generalized the ideas behind Charles Darwin’s theories of human society where the free-market economics and governmental noninterference provided a solid platform to where the survival of the fittest could play out and be observed. This man was truly invested in doing whatever it took to be successful, which is his case meant that he had to push his workers to longer hours and low wages. And some might see that a bit