Robber Barons: Captains Of Industry

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Robber Barons People who have been considered “Captains of Industry” have also been given the title “Robber Barons”. Is there really a difference in the two? While Robber Barons have been known to take as many resources as they can from an area they are also known for giving little to those who help them become rich. Often times they come in with flowing promises of better homes and cleaner cities to entice workers to live there. However, many workers find that does not happen. Yes, I will admit that they offer better wages than many people in agricultural areas will make, along with that are additional loans to what has often been described as the company store. The Robber Barons often worked with government to make sure that those who…show more content…
Which was that wealth should be used to improve society. Many of these captains did not believe in waiting until they died before helping others and felt the best way to help people is by providing jobs that could then allow the person to afford needs and some wants and also working with government and charities to help provide with those how needed help. The number one goal was to provide jobs. By working with government and other charities he can benefit those less fortunate by being able to see what the need is now. It’s wonderful to have a trust set up after a person dies to provide for such charity however failing during your lifetime to help with those charities does no one any good. That means that people must wait until you’re dead. For example if there are orphaned children they can’t wait thirty to forty years for you to die when there may be a need for an orphanage now. Ford, for example, helped make manufacturing of products easier so that it can be done quicker by line work. At one point, when building the model T he was limited in how many that could be produced in a day. In response to the increased demand for horseless carriages he set up a conveyor belt assembly line. Where his factory could build a car in just ninety-three minutes, bringing the price of the automobile down so that even his workers could now afford to buy what they helped…show more content…
Unlike Robber Barons they saw charities as a way of offering good will to the community that they were located in. They behaved in a way that showed to the best of their ability they would work to build a community instead of taking the resources and preparing to leave. Not all wealthy people were able to succeed with what they believed. Andrew Carnegie believed that wealth is divided in three ways which is, the descendants receive it; it’s used to public purposes; or it’s taken for taxes. It is unfortunate that in many cases to get the wealthy to help, there may be a need to increase the tax burden of the wealthy upon death so as to not have that burden placed solely on the middle class wage

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