What would you feel while talking about inequality?Explain

A Debate that lasts one hundred years
What would you feel while talking about inequality? You might hear someone talks about the gradually increase of the gap between the rich and the poor. Karl Marx, a renowned German philosopher, posted the essay “the Communist Manifesto” in 1848. He discussed the contribution of the Capitalist in the history, and the reason why he wants to lead the working class to overturn the domination of business man. Andrew Carnegie, a well-known Scottish-American industrialist, published an article, “The Gospel of Wealth” in 1889, to spread his idea of inequality and how the rich should distribute their wealth. He demonstrated the unequal wealth distribution in the society and the reason why there is such a different between the rich and the poor. Their opinions of class relation in the society, the further situation of the working class and the solution of reducing the inequality are significantly important even in the contemporary era.
Marx demonstrated his idea in the first sentence of the first section, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”(456). It means that the history of the whole human being until now is involved with the fighting among classes, which indicates that each class in his period was fighting with others. However, in one hundred years, with a similar society, Carnegie stated, “The ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship”(485). It clearly demonstrated that the relation between these two classes was still intimate. Furthermore, Marx asserted, “The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie”(466). It means that the first matter that the working class will do to against the capitalist, is to overturn their regime. The relation between the rich and the poor is hostile and will last until the extinction of one class.
On contrast, Carnegie described the opposed relationship as “friction”. He mentioned, “Often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor”(487). He did not treat it as warring sign but a small tiny problem that can be fixed. It really shows the difference idea between Marx and Carnegie. Nonetheless, they seemed to be similar or admitted to the fact, “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat”(457). Bourgeoisie represents the business man, or more professionally, capitalist, and proletariat represents the working class which is oppressed by the bourgeoisie. Carnegie used the “rich and poor” throughout the article, which indicates that the society is separated to only two classes.
In Marx’s opinion, the situation of the working class is getting worse as the development of the capitalism. He stated, “On the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth”(466). The “He” in the content represents the working class. It demonstrated the poverty reproduces even faster than the population and the wealth, which leads to the difficult situation of the working class. He tried to indicate that if the capitalism keeps growing in the future, the wealth of business man will accumulate to the situation where the working class cannot maintain their life.
On the contrary, Carnegie asserted, “The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life”(486). He stated that because of the development of technology, the living standard has raised incredibly and the valuable and priceless matters have become the necessaries in the daily life. It was a huge difference with Marx’s opinion because their prediction of the future are totally different.
Inequality seemed to be admitted by both Marx and Carnegie. Their solution of this problem were, however, completely different. Marx tried to use a simplest but effective way—revolution—to solve the problem of the inequality. He mentioned in the article, “The bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law”(466). He considered that the capitalism cannot be the dominated class in the society anymore because they cannot even afford the salary of the working class, and they cannot guarantee the living standard of the poor. Therefore, he stated, “The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air”(466). It clearly demonstrated that Marx wanted to revolutionize the whole society by using force, and without using that, the majority of people will get worse and worse under the oppression of capitalism.
Nonetheless, Carnegie tried to solve the problem of inequality by giving away their wealth to the poor. He considered the inheritance as the most unwise method to give away the wealth because the wealth cannot be wasted by untalented people, even though that person is your family. To leave wealth to the charity after his death is the second inexpedient way to distribute the wealth. He stated that it is just wasting money because it basically just throw away all the money and most of them might just be used to build a monument. He suggested to use those money to build a public resource in order to help the people who wants to help themselves.
To sum up, Marx stood in the side of the poor and supported the working class to fight for themselves and overturn the domination of the business man. On the contrary, Carnegie asserted that people are all the same at the beginning, but only the talented people will get a higher paid and they deserve the high salary. He stood in the side of the rich and tried to lead a way for the rich to reduce the inequality in the society. From my perspective, Carnegie’s idea makes more sense to me. As long as the working class dominates the country, they become the new ruler and the new issues will happen. Marx underestimates the greed of the individuals. The nature of human being demonstrates the zero possibility of a perfect harmony society. The good and the bad must be concomitant. Talented people can have a better understanding of human nature compared to the regular people. They cannot be easily wavered and manipulated. Thus, they can manage people and assign them different tasks. This talent cannot be easily replaced, therefore, the higher salary is reasonable. Because of their brilliant minds, we are able to enjoy the highest living standard in the history.
Work Cited
Carnegie, Andrew. “The Gospel of Wealth.” A World of Ideas. 9th ed. Ed. Lee Jacobus. Boston: Bedford, 2013. 481-495.
Marx, Karl. “The Communist Manifesto.” A World of Ideas. 9th ed. Ed. Lee Jacobus. Boston: Bedford, 2013. 453-476.