Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

As such the workers would have been well within their rights to protest and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement strongly opposed by management. The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. His interest in music led him to fund construction of 7000 church organs.

He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company which he sold to J. He was also one of the highest profile philanthropists of his era; his 1889 article "Wealth" (known more commonly—particularly in colloquial parlance—as "The Gospel of Wealth") remains a formative advisory text for those who aspire to lead philanthropic lives.