Don't forget Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron, who promoted the idea that a few wealthy men should control society, rather than have an equitable society for everyone. A few libraries spread around, while a nice idea, pales in comparison to a more just and equitable system.
Don't forget Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron, who promoted the idea that a few wealthy men should control society, rather than have an equitable society for everyone. A few libraries spread around, while a nice idea, pales in comparison to a more just and equitable system.
Same here. As a kid, I read with great interest a biography series called "Childhood of Famous Americans", and impressed my parents when I told them that our Public Library in Medford, OR was a Carnegie Library (I'm guessing 3rd or 4th grade at that time). When I hit the age where I was in the "upstairs" (adult) library more than "downstairs" (children's) library, my Dad asked me to read more about Carnegie and Henry Ford. He didn't ask me to do a report or anything, but we did have an interesting "out to breakfast" conversation about those to "pillars" of the US.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
Of course that capital is not necessarily private capital, nor should all of it be. Robber barons, be they royal or monopolistic are the enemy of liberty and justice for all. Part of that mix is free enterprise, but the notion that business should be a special ethics-free zone, and that laws should protect companies, not workers, customers, or communities is bat guano insane.
This was called Landmark Books, and through the mid-1950s I checked out and read scores of them -- from the public library on Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, Michigan. That library, a colonial style classic in west Dearborn, not far from Greenfield Village, was also a gift from Carnegie.
Yeah, one of my earliest memories was going to what was likely a Carnegie library with my mother and coming home with "Elmer and the Dragon". It's a treasured fragment, and anyway the libraries were a substantial and meaningful gift. But in context? We should not have to go to a king with our begging bowl to finance the General Welfare. Conservatives regularly condemn taxation as theft, but what are low wages and extortionate prices when oligarchs rule the roost?
JennSH, my point was that, unlike todayтАЩs employers who underpay employees and stiff contractors/contract employees, he at least did something for the communities. There were 1700 libraries built here. TodayтАЩs billionaires, many who inherited their wealth (like WalmartтАЩs Waltons, whose employees often rely on SNAP programs), rarely donate substantially to programs meant to make peopleтАЩs lives better.
Don't forget Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron, who promoted the idea that a few wealthy men should control society, rather than have an equitable society for everyone. A few libraries spread around, while a nice idea, pales in comparison to a more just and equitable system.
P.S. I lived in a town with a Carnegie library.
Robber baron is correct; https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/1892-homestead-strike
Yup. Unaccountable "power tends to corrupt", often to the point of sociopathy, is one of history's more salient motifs.
Same here. As a kid, I read with great interest a biography series called "Childhood of Famous Americans", and impressed my parents when I told them that our Public Library in Medford, OR was a Carnegie Library (I'm guessing 3rd or 4th grade at that time). When I hit the age where I was in the "upstairs" (adult) library more than "downstairs" (children's) library, my Dad asked me to read more about Carnegie and Henry Ford. He didn't ask me to do a report or anything, but we did have an interesting "out to breakfast" conversation about those to "pillars" of the US.
Worth asking who supports what.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
Of course that capital is not necessarily private capital, nor should all of it be. Robber barons, be they royal or monopolistic are the enemy of liberty and justice for all. Part of that mix is free enterprise, but the notion that business should be a special ethics-free zone, and that laws should protect companies, not workers, customers, or communities is bat guano insane.
I read the same or a similar series, Ally.
This was called Landmark Books, and through the mid-1950s I checked out and read scores of them -- from the public library on Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, Michigan. That library, a colonial style classic in west Dearborn, not far from Greenfield Village, was also a gift from Carnegie.
I did also and loved that place.
Yeah, one of my earliest memories was going to what was likely a Carnegie library with my mother and coming home with "Elmer and the Dragon". It's a treasured fragment, and anyway the libraries were a substantial and meaningful gift. But in context? We should not have to go to a king with our begging bowl to finance the General Welfare. Conservatives regularly condemn taxation as theft, but what are low wages and extortionate prices when oligarchs rule the roost?
JennSH, my point was that, unlike todayтАЩs employers who underpay employees and stiff contractors/contract employees, he at least did something for the communities. There were 1700 libraries built here. TodayтАЩs billionaires, many who inherited their wealth (like WalmartтАЩs Waltons, whose employees often rely on SNAP programs), rarely donate substantially to programs meant to make peopleтАЩs lives better.