The essential premise of Andrew Carnegie's The…

The essential premise of Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel of Wealth, the title of a series of essays published in 1890, can be read as a declaration that free enterprise and capitalism no longer exist in the United States because, as he and Rockefeller own everything, including the government, competition is possible only insofar as they allow it.

Carnegie states his belief that young people will eventually become aware of this and form clandestine organizations to fight against the situation.

To counter this eventuality, Carnegie proposes that men of wealth erect a synthetic free-enterprise system founded upon cradle-to-grave schooling.

Those who advance successfully through this schooling are to receive licenses to, in effect, lead profitable lives.

As all such licenses are to be tied to schooling, the entire economy may thus be controlled and the mass of students be motivated to learn what the established hierarchy wishes them to learn, imparted under the direction of what amounts to a handful of social engineers operating along the lines of the educational system developed by Prussia, Wundt and his disciples.