Billionaires' donations pale beside public spirit
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The groundswell of charity eventually put pressure on the American "robber barons" like Andrew Carnegie, famous for the dubious means they had used to get their wealth, to donate part of their wealth. It was religious influence and public charity, as well as the struggles of the working class and social pressures, that made the robber barons embark on the road of charity.
By 1904, there were over 100 charitable organizations in the US, and there was a national association of these organizations. Charity undertakings had become one of the three pillars of society in the US, along with the government and business.
In US history, charity undertakings, emerging along side the market economy, were a correction of social unfairness caused by greed and exploitation of capital. However, there is an apparent difference between the US charity and Europe's.
In the US, charity undertakings is an important pillar of social equilibrium, while in European countries like Sweden and the Netherlands, charity is just a supplement of welfare.
It's simple to understand the difference, since only in a country where individu-alism is given more emphasis and the distribution of social wealth is not fair enough could charity be a social pillar.
Are Europeans not as charitable as Americans? At the personal level, Europeans are more charitable. According to the Economist, in terms of the proportion of charitable contributions to GDP, the Netherlands ranks first and Sweden second. And in terms of the proportion of the population participating in charity undertakings, the US still lags far behind Europe. In countries like Sweden, Denmark and Norway, almost four-fifths of people often make charitable donations.
Moreover, if calculating in terms of the proportion of donations to family or individual incomes, the US might be at the bottom of the list, according to one report in the Financial Times.
In the dazzling light of US billionaires' charitable actions, the uniqueness of the US charity model is usually ignored. In fact, what we should ask is not how much US billionaires should do-nate, but why they have such a huge amount of wealth in the first place.
Welfare states, which attach more emphasis on tax leverage and have relatively fair social distribution, are less likely to generate so many super-rich to begin with.
The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily. dinggang@globaltimes.com. cn
