them, ruling the workplace as enlightened taskmasters, the workers would possess an equally enlightened sense of loyalty, both to their “captains” and their labor. Influence on economists Carlyle's concept influenced economists such as Joseph Shield Nicholson, John Kells Ingram, Arnold Toynbee (who nevertheless found the idea overly paternalistic), James Bonar, Alfred Marshall, and (especially) William Smart. Publications such as the Economic Review and the Economic Journal praised figures like Ernst Abbe as models of Carlyle's vision. Versus “robber baron” Some 19th-century industrialists who were called “captains of industry” overlap with those called “robber barons”. These include people such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Leland Stanford and John D. Rockefeller. The education division of the National 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 economic laissez faire, resulted in poor conditions for workers, but in the end, may also have enabled our present-day standard of living.” References Further reading External links Business terms Social groups Thomas Carlyle