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The question of philanthropy
慈善事业问题
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to recognize pros and cons of celebrity activism.
PROFESSOR:Andrew Carnegie was born into a poor family of weavers in a small town in Scotland, in 1835. After emigrating with his family to America in 1848, he started his first job at the age of only thirteen, working in a cotton mill as a 'bobbin boy', his task being to change the spools of thread on the machines. For this, he earned one dollar twenty a week. Despite his poor beginnings, a little over fifty years later, Carnegie would retire from business as the second richest man in the world, and spend the rest of his life as a philanthropist, helping those less fortunate than himself. By the time of the American Civil War in 1861, Carnegie had been a telegraph operator and a railroad worker.
PROFESSOR1:Realizing that the future of the world was in iron and steel, he began investing in these industries, combining an instinctive business skill with a self taught education to become extremely successful. In fact, by the late 188s, Carnegie was the biggest single manufacturer of iron and steel in the whole world, and well on the way to becoming a multimillionaire. However, as Carnegie wrote in a number of different essays and publications, money was not the only motivating factor in his life.
CARNEGIE:"I propose to take an income no greater than fifty thousand dollars per annum! " Beyond this I need ever earn but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others.
PROFESSOR:In other words, Carnegie didn't believe that his only role in life was to make money, but that, after becoming rich, his money should be used to help other people. In 191, Carnegie was bought out by another steel company and netted over two hundred million US dollars from the deal. Deciding there and then to retire, he embarked on a philanthropic journey which saw him donate hundreds of millions of dollars to build libraries, swimming pools, university institutions and concert halls in America, Canada and the UK. Perhaps due to his own desire for books and learning when he was young and poor, he devoted a lot of his time and money to children and their education. However, as with all famous philanthropists, no matter how much money Carnegie donated, it did not change the fact that the life he was living was like night and day compared to that of the poor people of the world.
PROFESSOR1:This, to me, is the fascinating, and controversial, thing about philanthropists. The question always remains: are these rich and famous people donating their millions simply to help the poor, sick and hungry of the world, or do they in fact feel guilty for the huge amount of wealth they've got, compared to those less fortunate than themselves? When Andrew Carnegie died of pneumonia 1919 at the age of 84, his estate was estimated to be worth in the region of five hundred million US dollars, and his philanthropic donations up till his death totaled an amazing 359,695,65 dollars: an incredible achievement.
