Carnegie capitalism

(Editor’s note: Jessica recently won an essay contest hosted by the Sweetwater County Historical Museum. The Star agreed to publish the winning essays)

In the early 1900’s the City of Green River’s dynamic was much different. The entire population was far less than 2,000, and the railroad had quite recently made its debut in town. Green River did not yet have the expansive education system we have today, but rather hosted one small schoolhouse that did not produce a single high school graduate during its first 20 years. Public resources were scarce, and Green River was at risk of crumbling into an abandoned ghost town if this did not improve. Through the efforts of Robert C. Morris and T.S.Taliaferro, Jr. on Independence Day in 1907, Green River officially opened the doors of our very own Carnegie Library.

This stood as a monumental testament of hope and education for the townspeople, and demonstrated the need for philanthropy within a society. Andrew Carnegie’s contributions to our community and thousands of others are an essential historical demonstration of the way people living in a capitalist country, like you and I, must act in order for a society to prosper.

Green River’s Carnegie Library sits empty tucked behind the Courthouse in a small grove of trees. The building stands out from the surrounding architecture — it was built in the iconic Classical Revival style which was expensive relative to other styles at the time, and this style would require structural renovations if the buildings were to continue standing. Carnegie Libraries across the globe bear this bold architecture and are identifiable by this characteristic. In the early 1900s Andrew Carnegie dedicated a great portion of his wealth towards creating almost 2,000 of these buildings to serve the public and ensure his wealth did not go to waste when he died. His efforts expanded beyond the United states as he sponsored hundreds of libraries overseas, including almost a hundred in Scotland where he was born. Carnegie also began many lesser known non-profit organizations aimed at educating people who could not afford schooling, and donated what would now be worth billions of dollars to help those in need.

The libraries were built in the name of Philanthropy, a philosophy popularized and idolized by Mr. Carnegie.

Andrew Carnegie began working for $1.20 a week as a bobbin boy at a cotton mill at age 13 when his parents immigrated to the United States from Scotland. He landed a job in communications and began buying company shares until he had generated enough wealth to invest largely in the oil and steel industries which were exceptionally fruitful because of the popularity of the new railroads in the country. Carnegie began a steel company that he later sold during the largest business deal in American history.

Carnegie’s personal peak wealth was about $380 million, or about $309 billion by today’s metric. For context, the top three richest Americans today, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett have an estimated worth of $209 billion combined. 8 During his early life, Carnegie was not wealthy so he swore to devote his money to the common good before he gained such extensive wealth.

Andrew Carnegie documented his personal philosophy in his early life with letters and papers devoting himself to a life of philanthropy in an effort to ensure when he became rich he would not lose perspective of life and the circumstances of normal people. Carnegie published a short paper of his thoughts on wealth after he sold his company, which was later renamed “The Gospel of Wealth” and explained Mr. Carnegie’s thoughts on how the people should behave in a capitalist economy.

Carnegie argued in the early 1900’s that the gap between the rich and the poor was becoming too extravagant and that it was the responsibility of those with wealth to redistribute their wealth in a way they could guarantee would improve the quality of life for those who come after them. Carnegie argued people should have to reallocate their money during life, not have it distributed after death, and people who do find financial success in life and fail to use it should not be admired at all. There is no point in taking money with you to the grave. Carnegie had two more take-aways in the essays on wealth, those being that the government should have the responsibility of ensuring wealth is redistributed only if the people are unwilling to do it themselves, and that not all charity is equal.

Carnegie was an example of a version of philanthropy that was popularized early in Carnegie’s age — Scientific Philanthropy, which was the idea that some charities are illegitimate and that giving back to a community should be done directly — not through large organizations that launder money, governments, or churches.

In modern times, examples of these corrupt corporations constantly overwhelm charity. The Veterans Fund, Kids Wish Network, and American Breast Cancer Foundation and 47 other charities in 2013 accounted for $1.35 billion in personal donations, and of that, $970 million went directly to the people collecting the money, not the victims. The government’s efforts at allocating income from public taxes is also scrutinized often for failing to help those in need in ways that would really change their lives.

The idea of this was that the government was not the best agent to help those in need, and that the government could remain as compact as possible if all citizens did their duty in ensuring that those who are least advantaged in society are cared for. Carngaie was hopeful that government intervention in wealth would be unnecessary, but held the belief that if every person was not willing to be charitable this would be impossible. Carnegie began his own charities in order to ensure they were genuinely giving towards what he wanted them to, which was providing free educational materials to people in need.

The Carnegie Library in Green River as well as the ones scattered all over this country serve as a physical reminder of the way people should handle wealth. People must engage in scientific philanthropy if capitalism is to work and halt the necessary government intervention that would prevent the rich from abusing the economy like Carnegie predicted. Every person, not just Carnegie can contribute to ensuring that people who are in need can suffer as little as possible. One third of the world population lives on less than $2 a day, and most nations do little to help. Chances are that you, the person reading this essay, is not in that third, and live in a nation, the United States of America, that has many programs available to help. This demonstrates privilege and a moral obligation to circulate wealth and ensure that people in need continue to get assistance. Without philanthropic actions, a capitalist economy cripples in the hands of the few rich men, and the government will have to step in to minimize the harms for the lower and middle class. We must all act selflessly by donating and spending carefully to avoid funding large corporations or accept the government’s hand controlling the economy.

Finally, for those of us who have yet to make a couple hundred billion dollars and can sadly not build libraries across the country, here’s a FREE and easy way to redistribute the wealth of a multi-billion dollar corporation to sponsor free admission to our local museum, educational programming, interactive exhibits for youth and adults, as well as expert research services and scholarships for local students. Visit the Sweetwater County Historical Museum’s website, hover over the “About Us” tab on the top right, and open the “Donate” tab.

The very first link will donate money from Amazon to the Sweetwater County Historical Museum at no cost to you. Thank You!