In 1889, Andrew Carnegie, one of the most successful businessmen at the time, wrote his Gospel of Wealth. He followed his ideals and ended up donating a vast majority to libraries. Not only that, but he believed in death taxes. Carnegie believed that during this time period, the gap between the wealthy and the poor was greater than before. This gap should be welcomed because it will ultimately benefit society. This condition, though, gives wealth to only a few. The laws, are biased towards the wealthy since the government is taking a laissez-faire approach. He offers three possible solutions of dealing with excess wealth, for the good of society. They are; leaving money for families, the public can use it, or the wealthy can give it out and use it as needed. The first is no justifiable because based on England's primogeniture tradition, conflicts would arise between inheritors. It will harm the inheritors more than it will help them, relationships could be torn apart. The problem with the second option is that it the wealth won't be used until after the death of the owner, thereby meaning that the ways it is used are not up to the person who left the money, so it could be misused or spent on things that the person didn't want it spent on. That leaves the last option, which is the best since the owner of the money can decide how to use it. He goes off on a tangent saying how Communism with an equal distribution of wealth will not get used since there is no one that will be willing to share their small sum of money, a larger sum of money means that money can be used. The wealthy have duties to follow, including living a modest life, and if he choses to share his money with others, they should be in the form of trust funds. Therefore the man of wealth is one that has the experience and willingness to do better by the poor than they themselves can.
