The Responsibility of the Individual to the Community

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Recommended: Wealth distribution sociology

Our modern world is focused on unimportant things such as celebrities and their eating disorders. Whatever happened to close-knit communities focusing on neighbors and their families? Although individuals may not seem important when blended into a crowd, each person is a puzzle piece to the community.
According to Andrew Carnegie in his piece The Gospel of Wealth, he believes that the rich are (or should be) responsible for the poor. He gives an example of a young man tossing a quarter to a beggar to keep him from annoying him. However, the question must be asked: Who in the world said that a rich man must take care of his community? Why is it suddenly his responsibility? (Carnegie, 2013)
Wealth comes from only one of several reasons: one, it is inheritance passed down from one generation to the next. Two, it is righteously hard-earned and achieved through many trials; and three, out of thieving. A good example of inheritance is Finn Rausing, a Swede who inherited 5.1 billion dollars from his grandfather. An obvious example of a hard-earned paycheck is America’s very own, Steve Jobs (Moisescot, 2010). Then there are women like Rita Crundwell who love to embezzle millions of dollars from tax payers. (Babwin, 2013)
People who are wealthy are wealthy for a reason. They don’t continually spend it on little trinkets that they’ll forget about in a couple days. Like the middle-class and welfare-reliant, rich people will flock to sales just as easily. But unlike the middle-class and welfare-reliant, they won’t go out to buy expensive name-brand items. It’s not to say that they don’t, but they know how to keep their money in their bank accounts.
Suddenly, if one has more money than his friends, it’s his job to watch over the community a...

... middle of paper ...

...ple do not care about, but are important nonetheless? It is our responsibility to not have responsibilities, in the sense that everyone should be able to take control over their own lives without being forced to have a sense of duty.

Works Cited

Babwin, D. (2013). Rita Crundwell Sentencing: Nearly 20 years for ex-comptroller who stole $53 million from town. Huff Post Chicago.
Carnegie, A. (2013). The Gospel of Wealth. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition (pp. 361-363). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Hardin. (2013). Lifeboat Ethics. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Moisescot, R. (2010). Long Bio. Retrieved Feb 10, 2014, from All About Steve Jobs: http://allaboutstevejobs.com
Singer, P. (2013). The Singer Solution to World Poverty. In e. a. Shea, The Language of Composition (pp. 369-374). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

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