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Andrew Carnegie Surplus Wealth Summary

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Andrew Carnegie once raised the question of how to distribute wealth properly. He raised the argument on whether or not it was fair for so few to have so much and keep it away from the people who have so little. He asked this question when he realized that there are few people that are born into wealth and do nothing to earn it while there are people who live in poverty who work everyday just to keep their families alive. Carnegie explained how there were two types of wealth, there is comfort wealth and surplus wealth. Surplus wealth was an extreme unnecessary wealth that was never used to provide for family but instead for luxury items.Comfort wealth was explained as an amount of wealth that allowed them to live comfortably without the luxury …show more content…

Each mode was found to have an issue on how the use of the money could be monitored and not abused. Both the first and second mode were harder to monitor, the first didn’t take care of the issue with surplus wealth, and the second modes issue was that the wealth was not always used as the person who passed wished. Which left the third mode as the best option possible, the third mode ensured that the wealthy would donate to the public in order to avoid high taxes. Carnegie then had to decide how much the tax would be, and he decided that the amount that would be taxed would depend on the amount of money you had. Since the other two decisions had many faults the third was put into motion.

Andrew Carnegie wanted to create a capitalist system, which involved the lower class working underneath of the wealthy, who would then give their surplus of wealth to society The duty of the wealthy is to set an example of modesty among the wealthy, to provide for the needs of those that depend on him and to lend money to his fellow man to give back to the community. The man of wealths duties as carnegie explained in paragraph nine is to “provide the poor a trustee and a sole agent that provides them with wisdom experience and doing for them better than they would do or could do for themselves.” ( Carnegie, paragraph nine). THis system would give the wealthy many responsibilities, but Carnegie believed it was their duty to help others when they were unable to help

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