A Hanukkah meditation.

Suppose you were to stand, clipboard in hand, in the vestibule of your public library and ask the panoply of patrons who pass by to name a fictional character that captures the essence of capitalism. Chances are, the characters mentioned most often would be miserly or unscrupulous, like Dickens’ unredeemed Scrooge, or Gordon (“Greed is good!”) Gecko from the movie Wall Street. While capitalism certainly allows the greedy, the exploitative, and the corrupt to prosper for a while, it also offers vertical mobility for the generous, the selfless, and the exemplary.

Few library patrons recall that entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of some of our greatest libraries – like the New York Public Library, where Leo Astor and Leo Lenox gaze, with serene marble regard, at and beyond the City’s exuberant pandemonium. By the time of his death in 1919, Carnegie had built more than half the public libraries in the United States, some 1,689 structures stretching from Pittsfield, Maine, to Eureka, California; from Pawnee City, Nebraska, to Palestine, Texas; from Redfield, South Dakota, to Jackson, Tennessee.

Capitalism’s detractors, desperate to minimize Carnegie’s generosity, sniff that he built these libraries to see his name displayed...