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Andrew Carnegie Robber Baron Or Captain Of Industry

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As industry began to grow in America, a select group of pioneers such as Andrew Carnegie became controversial. The controversy was that they were simply rich and took from the poor. People who participated in such acts were referred to as “Robber Barons”. It is often said that Andrew Carnegie was a “Robber Baron” but he was not because in his case, he was one of the first people to bring industry to such a large scale. Without people before him, he had no guidance and therefore it was much harder to conduct business because he was essentially creating his own path. The opposite of a robber baron is a captain of industry and Andrew Carnegie fits more appropriately into that category. Andrew Carnegie is the father of the steel industry. …show more content…

The main problem with calling him a robber baron for that reason is that he was running a business. The main point of running a business is to make money. At the time he was the best at what he did and that’s how he was able to acquire so many assets and essentially create a monopoly in the steel industry. It is unfair to say that he was a robber baron for this reason because he was simply successful. He didn’t have anything handed to him and that also makes him a captain of industry because he set the example that you can come up from nothing. Another reason that his practices are justified is that there was nobody before him to set the example in ethics and no laws requiring a certain pay. His goal was to make as much money as humanly possible and when push comes to shove that is what a business is for. “What few people realize about Carnegie is that his insatiable drive for more and more wealth , without limit, was tied to his conviction that it was his duty to give it all away by the time of his death- so that the richer he became, the more beneficial he could become”. This shows that he was not a greedy scumbag who was only concerned for himself and reiterating the fact that he was a captain of industry and not a robber

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