Andrew Carnegie- Persuasive

The rich or upper class should give some of their wealth back to the society. I agree with Andrew Carnegie the “Wealth” speech that it is important that the wealthy should give back to their society. Carnegie stresses that this would indeed help masses of people and enhance our race by giving funds to provide for the public. I believe this is very true and that this is a very obvious solution to inadequate public funding.

The best and most important reason why the rich should give to society is that it will benefit numbers of people and could even benefit the investors as well. If a fair portion of a well-off individuals money was given for public use, many public services and places would be highly enhanced such as better teachers, superior schools, improved public transportation, and renovated public places like libraries and parks. This would in turn truly help masses of people excel. Children could become a lot higher in abilities and knowledge when they become adults having been able to be exposed to such parks, museums, and libraries, we could see them become wealthy themselves.

There could be a lot less crime and dangers with more policemen and firemen, this would mean people would live in a more secure and safe neighborhood. A secure and well-educated society would without a doubt raise the standard of living. Now the wealthier classes also get some benefits as well because since everyone is satisfied with how there life is they would tend to buy and invest more therefore raising the economy as well. As the economy rises, the already wealthy will most likely become wealthier and they are part of a better society too. It is apparent that the rich giving to society is a win situation for everyone in the sense that people would be living better, there is less crime, and numerous people will have more money as well.

Another reason the rich should give back to the community is because of morality. The wealthy are rich for a couple of reasons and somewhere down the line one of those reasons is almost guaranteed to be because of the people. Would an actor be great without an audience to enjoy it? Would anyone even care how great Wayne Gretzky was to hockey, if there weren’t any hockey fans? Now would a business entrepreneur become rich without the people to buy their products? Of course these answers are all no and the point is that the people have given a lot to make an individual become rich with money, so wouldn’t it be the right thing to do to give a small fortune back that would benefit those who have supported you. Religion, your parents, and society itself have taught most people that helping others that are less fortunate is the right thing to do. Also, I assure that a millionaire that makes $8 million would not likely miss a hundred thousand or even a million for that matter because they are already living a high life.

A million off for them would be like normal people losing a hundred dollars at a casino, it would be great if you still had it but it’s not like you’re going to have to cut back on your usual expenses. However, for the rich man to hand over a million dollars to the man who just lost a hundred, now that would change that man’s life forever, but the already rich man’s life would not change at all. This symbolizes that if the rich gave to the poorer society then it could drastically change societies’ standards for the better. In conclusion to this, it is also morally right to for the wealthy to return some of their wealth.

One last reason for the rich to contribute back is found in the past when selfish rich men contributed nothing and society ended up suffering big time. Back up a couple of centuries ago and you will find Louis XIV the king of France. He held a lot of money, money that would have helped the people greatly in flourishing as a society, but King Louis XIV did no do that. Instead history tells us that he spent the money on extravagant luxuries such as new clothing everyday, being surrounded by diamonds and gold in every room of his living, and of course the Palace of Versailles which was one of the most extravagantly expensive buildings of all time. Now these luxuries were nice to him, but as this was being put up the people of France were put down. They were in a depression and were starving. Eventually Louis XIV became the king of nothing more than a high-debted and poor country with extravagant structures. This can serve as a lesson that money should be put in society. A more suitable historic event that can serve the same lesson is the Great Depression.

In my opinion and I can be backed up on this, is that part of the reason that we went into such a deep depression was due to the entrepreneurs. Rockafeller, Vanderbilt, and even Carnegie were an elite league of businessmen. They strategized by eliminating all smaller businesses that tried to contend with them by making their prices so low that everyone went to the big business and the smaller ones would then go bankrupt or be bought out by the big one. After that they jacked up their prices without any competition to run against them forming monopolies. No other businesses were able to flourish therefore decreasing the standard of living and in turn decreasing the economy.

At this point of decline I believe the entrepreneurs could surely have helped by putting a portion of their enormous fortunes back into the economy that made their fortunes possible in the first place, but they chose not to help much until it was too late and the market had completely crashed. I it is apparent that these people took in so much from society and when it was their turn to put some back they came too little and too late. In conclusion, history has already pointed out sometimes were the rich should have given back to the society and proved when it didn’t happened society suffered.

I think that it is unmistakably noticeable that the rich should help the poorer society. This could be mutually benefiting and is also morally correct. It has also been proven in history that society has suffered when they did not give anything back. Therefore in conclusion, I strongly persuade the rich to make contributions and that Andrew Carnegie is accurate in his speech.