He sold his company after several years for hundreds of millions of dollars, worth the equivalent of several billions of dollars today. Carnegie 's immense wealth and privilege caused many throughout the world to critique or question Carnegie 's success. Andrew Carnegie defended his plentiful fruits of labor in his publication to the North America Review, Wealth. He articulated that he followed in the ideas of individualism that all men possess and that America recognized in its founding. Carnegie remarked, " He [the individual] is the only true reformer who is careful." Here, Carnegie asserts that the only person who bring about change is man himself. It isn 't the government 's role nor will change be brought forth by a collective. Man, the individual, is the driving force of change. Carnegie attacks the ideas brought forth by the marxists, socialists, and anarchists of his time by proclaiming, "Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any others which have been tried. " Carnegie details how the ideas introduced by those seeking to make America a bastion of a collective will ultimately fail, because throughout the history of the world, these socialist and collective experiments never show …show more content…
Before the great experiment that is the United States of America took place, the vast majority of men were confined to a born social status or class. It was very challenging for a man to move up to a higher level of privilege, wealth, or status and is many cases, it was near impossible. Men around the world were seen as people who required a central ruler; in example, a king or an emperor. Rarely was the ordinary, common man thought to be sufficient enough to live his own life and participate in all aspects of both civilian society but political discourse as well. Because of the system of individuality that America was founded upon, men like Andrew Carnegie were able to rise from poverty and create great wealth for