Wealth,
también conocido como The Gospel of
Wealth, es un artículo escrito por Andrew Carnegie en 1889, en el cual
habla sobre la responsabilidad de hacer filantropía, de los nuevos ricos.
Carnegie propuso que la mejor manera de enfrentar la inequidad era redistribuir
las ganancias de una manera responsable. Además criticó la forma tradicional de
heredar la riqueza, argumentando que lo mejor era una administración cuidadosa.
También criticó la extravagancia en los gastos de los ricos, promoviendo en su
lugar la administración cuidadosa del capital para reducir la brecha entre
pobres y ricos.
The problem of
our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood
may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The
conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within
the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between
the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his servants. The Indians are
to-day where civilized man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the
wigwam of the chief. It was just like the others in external appearance, and
even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of
his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage
of the laborer with us to-day measures the change which has come with
civilization.
This change,
however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. 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. Much
better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can
be no Mæcenas. The "good old
times " were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well
situated then as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to
both--not the least so to him who serves--and would Sweep away civilization
with it. But whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our
power to alter, and therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is a
waste of time to criticize the inevitable.
Carnegie, 1878 |
It is easy to
see how the change has come. One illustration will serve for almost every phase
of the cause. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It
applies to all combinations of human industry, as stimulated and enlarged by
the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly articles were manufactured at
the domestic fireplace
or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his
apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and
therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to be
masters, there was little or no change in their mode of life, and they, in
turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was,
substantially social equality, and even political equality, for those engaged
in industrial pursuits had then little or no political voice in the State.
But the
inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was crude articles at high
prices. To-day the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices
which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the
commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is
benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What
were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more
comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago. The farmer has more
luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and better housed. The
landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the
King could then obtain.
The price we pay
for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of
operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing,
and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between
them is at an end. Rigid Castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance
breeds mutual distrust. Each Caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready
to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition,
the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which
the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between
the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and
poor. Human society loses homogeneity… (Paragraphs from Wealth, by Andrew
Carnegie, in easier English)
Palabras
reemplazadas
Retainers hearth
Vocabulario
Mæcenas: a
generous patron especially of literature or art. Although the ancient Roman Gaius Maecenas was a well-known diplomat
and counselor to Emperor Augustus, it was his munificent patronage of
literature that immortalized his name as a word for "a generous
patron."
Counting-house: a
building where a firm carries on operations.
Recursos
The Gospel of Wealth,
audiobook
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