Crystal Clear by Jaya Saxena

Author:Jaya Saxena [Saxena, Jaya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Andrew Carnegie also grew up poor, the son of Scottish weavers who moved to Pennsylvania to escape extreme poverty. Young Carnegie was sent to work in a cotton mill six days a week. He grew up, invested in oil, made an astronomical fortune, and then wrote a foundational text for anyone who thinks greed is good. In “The Gospel of Wealth,” he writes that the world has never seen such an incredible standard of living as it had in those modern times. Who cares if it is only available to a few? “It is well, nay, essential, for the progress of the race that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so,” he argues. “Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor.”

This disparity, to Carnegie, is progress. Society “must either go forward or fall behind; to stand still is impossible.” Carnegie takes it as self-evident truth that men with the talent for running business must do so and must make a profit, and though he implores rich men to donate to charities and open libraries during their lifetimes, he writes that the condition of humanity must be better under this capitalism than it is under any other system. In fact, for Carnegie capitalism is itself civilization, and that is what the anarchists and socialists wish to destroy. We have produced the best life so far under this system, he argues, why uproot it when something better is not guaranteed?

Though “The Gospel of Wealth” is Carnegie’s most famous essay, the one bankers and preachers alike use to justify wealth as a moral imperative, “Popular Illusions About Trusts,” is the essay in which Carnegie lays out his most obvious argument for money as the bearer of happiness. He writes that the overwhelming tendency toward “aggregation of capital” cannot be stopped, so instead of attempting to restrict what wealth can be made, “we should hail every increase as something gained, not for the few rich, but for the millions of poor…. It makes for higher civilization, for the enrichment of human life, not for one, but for all classes of men.” It is trickle-down economics at its plainest—a wealthy few means factories, means trains, means it’s easier for everyone to have things that only royalty used to have. You may never know what a weekend is at your factory job, but at least everyone can afford multiple shirts.

What makes these texts and others that influenced modern prosperity theology—the spiritual belief that your wealth and health are a direct reflection of your positive relationship with God—so appealing is they admit that being poor sucks. They say poverty is a sign that you are unsuccessful and wasting your potential; you are doing society no good by not making more money. But it is also a sign that you yourself are probably not enjoying life as much as you could be.

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