Documents on the Industrial Revolution

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American Studies

Harrison

Documents on the Industrial Revolution

Concentration of Wealth Harm America (1883)

by Henry George

Quotations: / Meaning
A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of a fortunate few, and to make other mere human machines must inevitably evolve anarchy and bring destruction.
The mere growth of society involves danger of the gradual conversion of government into something independent of and beyond the people and the gradual seizure of its power by a ruling class.
The more corrupt a government the easier wealth can use it..... Money and organization tell more and more in elections.
The he who produces should have that he who save should enjoy is consistent with human reason and with the natural order. But existing inequalities of wealth cannot be justified on this ground As a matter of fact how many great fortunes can be truthfully said to have been fairly earned?

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Concentration of Wealth Help America (1889)

by Andrew Carnegie

Quotations / Meaning
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price for cheap comforts and luxuries is also great, but the advantage of this law are also greater still than its cost... for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development
Not evil, but good, has come to the race rom the accumulation of wealth by those who have had the ability and energy to produce it..."
Private property, the law of accumulation of wealth and law of competition-- these are the highest result of human experience, the soil in which society so far had produced the best fruit.
It is the duty of a man of wealth to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning displays or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those who depend upon him...