Daisey History Seven: Captains of Industry

Yeah, this is going to take longer than expected. Part of it is because the work load is tightening up, and part of it is because OTHER things are coming along that I should talk about (like, um, other plays and ... economic stuff).

In episode six we talked about how change really happens from below as opposed to being awarded from above. So now we flip to the other side with the seventh installment of Mike Daisey's "A People's History", switching from the renters seeking redress to the elites of the system, the giants of industry, the wealthy.

Carnegie. Industrialist. Philanthropist. Mutant.

Daisey comes in the basic assumption that "Rich People Are Bad" and he has more than enough examples of that. These elites come from success and just get richer. And there are a lot of good examples of this. JP Morgan was the son of a financier. Andrew Mellon was a banker's son.  Rockefeller's dad was literally a con man.

And then there is Andrew Carnegie, the exception that tests the rule. And it is pronounce Car-NEG-ee, as far as native of Pittsburgh are concerned. CAR-neh-gee is something New Yawkers talk about when talking about Carnegie Hall. Yes, some Pittsburghers call the museum complex that houses Car-NEG-ee's dinosaurs the CAR-neh-gee. But they're just wrong.

Andrew Carnegie is Horatio Alger as written by Stan Lee. He was an immigrant from Scotland. Came here as a child because his father's handmade lace business was destroyed by the arrival of high-production industrial methods. He comes to the States and became a bobbin boy, working at the very type of mills that destroyed his father. He got breaks - access to the libraries of the more successful (hence all the Carnegie Libraries around the country). He was diligent, and never forgot a fact, a name, or an opportunity. He claimed to be able to read a teletype by the sound it made making each letter. Yep, he's a mutant, suitable for Prof. Xavier's School for Exceptional and Privileged Children.

Instead of Money Comes from Money, I would propose that what really happens is "Learn the Game, Play the Game, Change the Game." And those born into positions of power are more capable of seeing the game and have access to it than most of the rest of our bunch. Because the nature of wealth does change over time, and we've seen agricultural fortunes flounder while industrialists come to the fore and then they are overtaken by financial managers and tech lords. But the wealthy, while not guaranteed success, have both table stakes to get into the game to begin with, as well as the cushion for when they fail. And they have the ability to, once they make their pile, pull up the ladder behind them to keep others from doing the same thing they did.

Nope. Not letting CaNEGie off the hook, here. Just looking for a broader pattern.

More later,