Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless businessman who wanted to make the world a better place. He didn’t marry until after 50 and never seemed to focus on anything as much as he focused on himself. That focus drove him to become the richest man in the world. A charming if not overwhelming man he was short in stature but large in personality. He had many relationships but non that rival the Madison Jefferson bromances of the past. He believed he was a friend to labor all while maintaining control over them. Before he died, we wanted to give his wealth away and broker world peace. Too bad he wasn’t successful.

Andrew accomplished a great deal in his life, he wrote “The Gospel of Wealth” and with the help of JP Morgan formed the first billion-dollar corporation. It had a market capitalization of $1.4 billion of which Carnegies share was $226 million, nearly $120 billion today. He developed the sliding scale pay wage but based it on the price of steel opposed to the profits. So as the price of steel would drop, so would the wages but profits would rise. With the money he profited he built over 3,000 public libraries, although employees of a Steel plant might have a hard time visiting one since they worked 12-hour shifts. How is a man supposed to improve himself if he works that much? It’s not that Carnegie was a bad guy; it’s just had major blind spots in his own reasoning that sometimes bordered on delusion.

Reading this book helped me understand bimetallism vs the gold standard, corporations, and the industrialist period better. Being that he was a corporate giant, capitalist and socialist, it led me to read about Oliver Wendell Homes seeking to understand some of the court cases in the battle between capital and labor.