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In the 19th century, acaptain of industry was a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country in some way. This may have been through increased productivity, expansion of markets, providing more jobs, or acts ofphilanthropy.[2] This characterization contrasts with that of therobber baron, a business leader using political means to achieve personal ends.
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The term was coined by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopherThomas Carlyle in his essay "Count Cagliostro" (1833).[3]
In such periods of Social Decay, what is called an overflowing Population, that is a Population which, under the old Captains of Industry (named Higher Classes,Ricos Hombres, Aristocracies and the like), can no longer find work and wages, increases the number of Unprofessionals, Lackalls, Social Nondescripts; with appetite of utmost keenness, which there is no known method of satisfying. Nay, more, and perversely enough, ever as Population augments, your Captains of Industry can and do dwindle more and more into Captains of Idleness; whereby the more and more overflowing Population is worse and worse governed (shownwhat to do, for that is the only government): thus is the candle lighted at both ends; and the number of social Nondescripts increases indouble-quick ratio.[4]
InPast and Present (1843), Carlyle uses the term in reference to industrialists, such as mill-owners, whom he regards as a new aristocracy. In Carlyle's view, British society's devotion to appearances (fashion, wealth, status) at the expense of substance (good, hard, honest labor) has resulted in a need for "the awakening of the Nation's soul from itsasphyxia."[5] Carlyle identifies the heart of England's social ills as being the relationship between employers and the employed, based solely on "Cash-payment for the sole nexus." What is called society has produced nothing but the "totalest separation, isolation," and the false belief that "Cash-payment...absolves and liquidates all engagements of man."[6] Carlyle asserts that "No Working World . . . can be led on without a nobleChivalry of Work, and laws and fixed rules which follow out of that,"[7] a return to social order through mutual obligation and respect. Underlying the "Chivalry of Labour" is the basic assumption that human beings work best in a hierarchical structure. Laborers that "work not as in a Great Taskmaster's eye, will work wrong";[8] while the captains of industry would offer noble leadership and guidance to those beneath them, ruling the workplace as enlightened taskmasters, the workers would possess an equally enlightened sense of loyalty, both to their "captains" and their labor.
Carlyle's concept influenced economists such asJoseph Shield Nicholson,John Kells Ingram,Arnold Toynbee (who nevertheless found the idea overlypaternalistic),James Bonar,Alfred Marshall, and (especially)William Smart. Publications such as theEconomic Review and theEconomic Journal praised figures likeErnst Abbe as models of Carlyle's vision.[9]
Some 19th-century industrialists who were called "captains of industry" overlap with those called "robber barons". These include people such asCornelius Vanderbilt,Andrew Carnegie,Andrew Mellon,Leland Stanford andJohn D. Rockefeller.
The education division of theNational Endowment for the Humanities has prepared a lesson plan for schools asking whether "robber baron" or "captain of industry" is the better terminology. The lesson states that it attempts to help students "establish a distinction between robber barons and captains of industry. Students will uncover some less honorable deeds, as well as the shrewd business moves and highly charitable acts of the great industrialists and financiers. It has been argued that only because such people were able to amass great amounts of capital could our country become the world's greatest industrial power. Some actions of these men, which could only happen in a period of economiclaissez faire, resulted in poor conditions for workers, but in the end, may also have enabled our present-day standard of living."[10]
The dictionary definition ofcaptain of industry at Wiktionary