Excerpt from "Wealth"

First published in the North American Review, June 1889

"In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves."

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) was an outstanding symbol of the American dream: a poor immigrant who works hard and achieves astounding success and enormous riches. Carnegie had started on his path to success as a boy, working for low wages in a textile mill, and rose to dominate the steel industry.

At the same time that Carnegie was amassing his fortune, however, more typical immigrants were housed in squalid quarters, earning barely enough to live on. They worked for ten or twelve hours a day, six days a week; they received no vacations and were subject to dismissal at the whim of a supervisor.

In the 1880s the Socialist Party began appealing to such workers to back a profound...