The American Dream and Charity Carnegie and Emersons...

The American Dream and charity: Carnegie and Emersons different but complementary conceptions Individualism has always been an integral part of American, capitalist culture. Early on in its history, America was conceptualized as a land where it was it was possible for people to reinvent themselves. Even a poor immigrant like the Scot Andrew Carnegie could pull himself up by his own bootstraps, according to the logic of the American Dream. Carnegie believed that making money was a proof of ones moral fitness, and the ability of a great individual to make money in America produced a better society for all. Carnegie acknowledged that capitalism created inequities, but he believed that society as a whole was better off with ruthless, cutthroat American capitalism than without it. Charity was offered up as a remedy to these inequalities, based upon the compassion of the capitalist, but only from a position of power, according to Carnegies philosophy. The Transcendentalist author Ralph Waldo Emerson, although less directly celebratory of capitalism than Carnegie, likewise thought t he needs of the self must be honored before the needs of the many. Like Carnegie, Emerson also celebrated individualism, but not in terms of the material wealth it could generate, but its potential to yield spiritual and artistic wealth for America. In his famous essay The Gospel of Wealth, Andrew Carnegie suggests that the extreme wealth of some is ultimately good for all of society. In