Andrew Carnegie was an American industrialist who amassed a huge fortune in the late 19th century and later gave most of it away. Many American cities still have a Carnegie library donated by this philanthropist. When he died in 1919, he had donated millions of dollars. For a long time he had maintained that it was a disgrace to die rich.
However, Carnegie did not start out rich. He came to America as a poor little immigrant boy from Scotland. His family lived in poverty, first in Scotland and then in Pittsburgh. When he was a child, he had to drop out of school and work long hours six days a week to help support his family.
Over time, he managed to get out of poverty and became a billionaire. In his last years he wrote a series of essays and books. Among them was his Gospel of Wealth. In this essay he opined that a man had a duty to earn as much money as he reasonably could. So he had a duty to take care of his family and his dependents. Ultimately, he had a duty to responsibly hand over all of his wealth before he died, and that is what he actually did.
Among these various Carnegie writings, he wrote one called The Advantages of Poverty in 1898. In this essay, he repeats much of his Gospel of Wealth, but in particular he makes it clear that in his experience, a poor boy has the advantage of having to work their way out of poverty. . A child born into poverty takes nothing for granted and expects nothing that he does not earn for himself. He learns the discipline and value of work. He learns to accumulate wealth because he must or he will be condemned to remain poor. For Carnegie poverty was the great teacher.
He wrote that while it was proper to give alms to alleviate the most terrible suffering and deprivation of the poorest, it was a disservice to give them too much. He firmly believed that it was much more useful and even more morally defensible to help others help themselves than to simply help them.
Carnegie’s philosophy of wealth and poverty was informed by the social Darwinists of the late 19th century. It was common among the men of that thought to believe that the men who got rich had evolved to do so and that those who were poor had also evolved to such a state. However, Carnegie had somewhat more compassion and understanding than many of the wealthy of his day.
In fact, having been both very poor and very rich, he may have been uniquely equipped to preach the truth about wealth and poverty. Whether or not he agrees with all of Carnegie’s gospel, there is much wisdom in what he said. Poverty can be a good teacher in many cases.
You can find Carnegie’s essay on the advantages of poverty in the little book of that title which also includes his writings on How to Die Rich and The Greatest Gift. The whole little book is only 49 pages. It can be read in an hour, but will instruct for much longer.
Advantages of poverty
Andrew Carnegie
©2004 Executive Books
Rating: Over all this is a good book and very interesting. I recommend it.
