Andrew Carnegie VS. John D. Rockefeller

Carnegie and Rockefeller went down in history as two of the greatest industry names that have ever lived. Many of us now that these two giants built their empires in the young United States of the 20th century, but what is usually ignored or dismissed is that these two men where contemporaries of the same time and they were bitter rivals. 

They were always on constant competition and it is a fact that in their efforts to get on each other nerves they would interchange mockery Christmas presents every year, Rockefeller would send paper garments to Carnegie as an allusion to his humble beginnings and poverty as a child, while at the same time Carnegie would send fine whisky to Rockefeller in a way of making fun of his shrewdness and withdrawal from drinking.

But besides their competition in the economic and industry position, I want to focus on their rivalry for being the most charitable, Carnegie was a famed philanthropist, he built schools, libraries and many other charities and he did because he actually believed it was the right thing to do. He once said “a wealthy man's life should go in two stages -- first gaining wealth, then using that wealth to improve the general welfare. Rockerfelle, on the other hand, gave away more money that Carnegie, but for the wrong reasons, he did it to avoid persecution and prosecution from anti-monopolistic trusts that were after the Standard Oil.

And I raise the question, is this ethical? I think that charity has moral weight as long as it is done towards improving the spirit, or if it's something we see as a form of personal growth, but if it is done simply by pacifying the law, even though the purpose is good, I think it is unethical.