you would be on no higher level than a slave.
Franklin was a primary instigator in this ethos shown in various writings, which became widely quoted by other such motivational writers. His example of working hard and thus achieving was the first signs of the American Dream' we are all familiar with today. So to this end we might see Franklin's vision as having been passed on and reiterated to the present day.
Born into fairly humble surroundings, one of fifteen children, Franklin was somewhat rebellious but obviously precocious. He took advantage of this intelligence, with his ambition driving him from a very young age he was the owner of a print shop (a fast evolving trade at this point, in America) by twenty-four, soon using this to publish the Pennsylvania Gazette, which Franklin also edited. .
He used his own example ( A good example is the best sermon' ) to encourage others to work hard for the good of themselves as well as society, and to be as commercially successful as possible. But so as not to suggest a materialistic of self-satisfying motive for this thirst for over achieving he insisted that profits should be reinvested, and not lavishly spent on luxuries; (writing of his own home) " our table was plain and simple, our furniture was of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon."" .
He also recounted stories of less hardworking, more indulgent associates, and their subsequent downfalls, of which, he continues, is due to their chosen business strategies, so different from his own. Of a threatening business rival, Harry David, Franklin describes, "He was very proud, dress'd like a gentleman, liv'd expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business; upon which all business left him."" This list is really the epitome of what Franklin warned would be the ruin of any man who used his profits in such frivolity.
