The Ideology Of Success

In America, during the late 19 century and early 20th century, the ideology of success, was social Darwinism, where the “survival of the fittest”, can be apply to anything, meaning in business, life and even in society. Russell Conwell says that “opportunity for success exists everywhere in America,” but in the contrary, can hard work and doing the best you can to be successful in society, really give you that opportunity? Depending on your social class; economic ways to improve your income and how politically the government is corrupted, or how politics involved in your life, can determine your success in life. Hard work and a bit of luck can maybe make you successful, but not in all cases, sometimes it may not work the way you expected.

If you grew up in a poor social class, you might start at the bottom of the food chain and take time to achieve your goal. In the other hand, if your family is a bit more economically stable, then you might not struggle as much as the poor class, because you have the upper hand, and much more open opportunities. But of course there is always some luck involved in being successful, there is some people who can be very successful the next day, when before they were scrambling in trash looking for food. According to an article called, Russell Conwell Explains Why Diamonds Are a Man’s Best Friend, “ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich man of America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men” (Conwell). Conwell is explaining that society gets told that the rich people are dishonest and mean and ruthless, but honestly they are the most honest man, because they are trusted with money and people trust in them to work with

There is three big man, who start rising to the food chain, they are the biggest monopolies in the century, which are Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and JP Morgan. In Eric Foner’s Give me Liberty, it claims that “Andrew Carnegie set out to establish a steel company that incorporated vertical integration—that is, one that controlled every phase of the business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution (Foner, 481). Carnegie become very successful by controlling everything that is necessary to make his company run better and bigger. This is how his income of a one dollar man, became into a millionaire man. After controlling most of materials and manufacturing, his competitors can’t really mess with prices, so they are no longer competitive. Another big monopoly at this time, was John D Rockefeller, of course he wasn’t in the greatest social class by start, and he had some family struggles and forcefully needed to get a job to support family. In the lecture “America in the Gilded Age,”it claims that “Rockefeller starts horizontal expansion, by buying out competing oil refineries, soon developing what Carnegie did, which was vertical integration. He control about 90% of the oil market.” Knowing this, they crushed out other companies, making them robber barons, yet most people, might say its social Darwin, where they