A Review of Andrew Carnegie's "The Empire of Business"

Date Published: December 20, 2020
Date Modified: June 30, 2024

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is all wrong. I tell you "put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket."​

Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business

A Review of "The Empire of Business" by Andrew Carnegie

• Reviews of the Day
• Excerpts from "The Empire of Business"
• This Author's Opinion and Perspective

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 Reviews of the Day

"The real value of the book, to our mind, lies in placing the lessons of a successful personal [business] experience at the service of others. This is as if Napoleon Bonaparte had written a treatise on the art of war for the benefit of young soldiers."

The Harford Courant, June 27, 1902

"The value of this book, which we review from advance sheets, is beyond dispute. It bears a message to the world. The message in itself is as old as business enterprise. ... but the whole secret of the worth of the present volume lies in its authorship, ... as trite words, the time-worn advice become vivified when written by Andrew Carnegie. ...

​Certainly "The Empire of Business" is a work of great interest and usefulness, and its style is such as to place its contents clearly and briefly before the reader."

The Baltimore Sun, April 17, 1902

Drawing published in 1919 and believed to be in the public domain

 Excerpts from The Empire of Business​​

As with Henry Ford, quotes seem to be the best way to offer some insight into this book. Many of Carnegie's views I found very interesting as they were not what I expected. Especially some on taxation, inheritance taxation, and wealth.​​​

• "A heavy progressive tax upon wealth at death is not only desirable, it is strictly just."
  
  
• "Wealth is not chiefly the product of the individual under present conditions, but largely the joint product of the community. ... The community created the millionaire's wealth​."
  
  
• ​"Lack of proper recognition of the workers by the employers as fellow-men causes most of the labor disputes."
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• "Not one of us can feel his duty done, unless he can say as he approaches his end, that, because he has lived, some fellow-creature, or some little spot of earth has been made just a little better."
  
  
• "There is always a boom in brains; cultivate that crop, for if you grow any amount of that commodity, here is your best market and you cannot overstock it, and the more brains you have to sell, the higher price you can exact."
  
  
• "Capital is ignorant of the necessities and the just dues of labor, and labor is ignorant of the necessities and dangers of capital. That is the true origin of friction between them. More knowledge on the part of capital of the good qualities of those that serve it, and some knowledge upon the part of the men of the economic laws which hold the capitalists in their relentless grasp, would obviate most of the difficulties which arise between these two forces, which are indispensably necessary to each other."

 This Author's Opinion and Perspective

I really enjoyed this book, but a reader has to take into consideration the times when it was written as the tone is paternalistic, at times borders on condescending, and is preachy.

​Understanding that this was a man that fit the description of self-made and he was obviously taking on the socialist movement in the '20s, does offer some clues as to why the tone is so strong. Although a distraction, it did not get in my way. The message was still clear: Work is a requirement for success, and poverty doesn't need to get in the way of high achievement.

Carnegie felt poverty—which he himself experienced—was almost a prerequisite for success and definitely preferable to being born into wealth.

Cheers

​- Pete

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