Karl Marx & Andrew Carnegie

Marx

Marx is eloquent in an understated way. He simply takes the argument against him and disproves it to the best of his ability. Marx does leave out important aspects of the arguments and simplifies them down to the point at which the argument against him sounds absurd and pointless. His counter-arguments are effective though because he assumes his audience is either of the bourgeois class or a critical proletariat. Though I'm doubtful of communist government's effectiveness, I do feel that many issues he raises or very true and are very deserving of thought. It is unfair to automatically close your mind to these kinds of readings simply because of labels. He feels as though based on past revolutions that communism is an inevitable change. He has to try to convince people, however, because the world he lives in is so antagonistic towards the idea even though some may agree with him.

Marx views the bourgeois family very cynically. He claims that both women and children are being exploited and that the entire family is based on capital gain off of the backs of the proletariat class. He wants less inequality by giving women more rights. I think that some of Marx's views have been realized as women have been getting closer to equal pay and more social mobility. Children are now getting much better educations and are not victims of child labor. People as a whole will continue to make changes like this for the better.

Carnegie

Carnegie, although a smart man, is wrong in his thinking that the rich can distribute money better than anyone else. Only each individual person knows the needs of them and their families. His methodology is flawed in that he forgoes paying working people more in wages by instead gaining more money for the rich. Our nation at this very moment is experiencing income inequality comparable to the 1920's. It is no coincidence that people are living off of less and less money with a minimum wage that, if raised with inflation, would be $15. If Carnegie's philosophy was true regular people would be living substantially better those before them. Those who are already rich though and cannot raise any workers paychecks should follow Carnegie's book though. That method at least does benefit people a little bit as opposed to not at all.