Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American industrialist, led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century, became one of the richest Americans in history and a great philanthropist. More from Wikipedia. In 1889, he published “The Gospel of Wealth” in which he asserted “great inequality…[and]…the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few” were “not only beneficial but essential to…future progress.” He did not believe that successful businesses were obligated to pay high wages or contribute to a social safety net through taxes. That would only “encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy,” Carnegie wrote—the man of fortune should “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer…in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”
As historian Heather Cox Richardson recalled in her daily letter, Carnegie believed that “[T]his wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves.” More.
She also described Carnegie’s political influence in the early 1890s. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-30-2022
More YouTube videos on Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth.
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