Andrew Carnegie Study

During the late 19th Century and the early years of the 20th Century (1965-1914), with the industrial and science technological revolutions, the U.S. had accomplished its transition from an agricultural country to a major industrialized country of the world. In this course numbers of influential entrepreneurs appeared in the U.S. society. Among them, Andrew Carnegie, the outstanding steel manufacturer and philanthropist, was a great figure.Andrew Carnegie emigrated U.S. from Dunfermline, Scotland. He was very poor in his childhood and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America with his parents pursuing the "American dream"-the belief that through hard work, honesty and thrift, anyone no matter how humble, can achieve positions of power and influence. He began to work at ten. He was not only diligent, but also distinctive. Then he threw himself into the industries such as post and telecommunications, railroad industry, bridge with iron , petroleum industry and so on. Ultimately, he concentrated on the steel industry and became the leader of that field in U.S. In 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold his steel enterprise to Morgan John Plerpont and became the richest man in the world. From that time, Carnegie spared all his strength to carried out his philosophy about wealth and safeguarded the world's peace. Before he left the world, Carnegie contributed almost 90% of his fortune--$3.Smillions to the world.Andrew Carnegie was a skillful and prolific writer too. He had published sixty-three articles in major magazines like the North American Review of his time, and eight books. Although he is the richest man, he had expressed the radical philosophy so far in the essay-"Wealth" and published it in the North American Review. He said: "The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced". He spent his fortune during his lifetime in ways that will most effectively benefit and advance society. In addition, the salient feature of Carnegie's politics is his passionate devotion to republican government, such as is embodied in the constitution of the United States. In his book, "Triumphant Democracy", and in many magazine articles, he lauds to the people the glories of American democracy. So Andrew Carnegie was not only a shrewd businessman, but also a philanthropist and a thinker. As Joseph Frazier Wall said, "Andrew Carnegie is unique among American entrepreneurs, but not for those accomplishments usually assigned as the reasons for preeminence in the business world. It was not for the dominant position he achieved in a single industry, nor for the great wealth he personally amassed, nor even for the munificence of his philanthropy, spectacular as was his success in all of these areas."As a Chinese researcher, this paper attempts to study Andrew Carnegie's activity and his thought from four aspects. The paper began from the trail of the development of his business ; then came into the thought and activity of his business; and focus on the thought and activity of his politics successively; finally studied on the thought and activity of his philosophy. I attempt to evaluate his historical contribution objectively and fairly by analyzing his thought and activity. This paper point out, on the one hand, that the aim of Andrew Carnegie is to rake great profits and to unceasingly accumulate huge capital by means of exploiting workers and at the expense of compelled bankruptcy of numerous medium and small enterprises; on the other hand, we ascertain that when he amassed wealth and led individual luxurious life, he also promoted the prosperity of American steel industry and the advancement of American economy, and after having gained enormous wealth even became a philanthropist to bring about the changing of American value. In the period of the turning of laissez-faire capitalism into monopoly capitalism, entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie unconsciously played the role of midwife of this historical change.Our country is now on the way of reforming and opening to the world. It is of great practical significance to us to learn and to d...