Billionaires' donations pale beside public spirit
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How much does one have to donate in order to be called charitable? For the wealthy, donating millions of dollar could be considered charitable, and for the poor, less than one dollar might be enough. Charity cannot be measured in terms of money alone, but in terms of the spirit behind the gift.
On June 18, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates launched the biggest fundraising campaign in history to call on the richest Americans to pledge at least 50 percent of their money to charity. The campaign was over on August 4, and over 40 billionaires or members of the richest families in the US have made the pledge.
According to Buffett and Gates' calculation, the property of the Forbes' top 400 in the US totals $1.2 trillion. If they could donate half of their wealth, the proceeds would reach at $600 billion.
It's indubitable that these billionaires' huge donation will further glorify their names, and could add positive color to the word "billionaire." However, no matter it is Gates or Buffett, such charity is just the charity of the wealthy.
Modern mass media always magnifies things so that people tend to be too preoccupied with the donations of the US super-rich. But without public participation in charity, there would be no social morality or charitable values, and no encouragement for the wealthy to donate their money.
In the US, charity has close historical ties with religion. Originally, charity was mostly focused on providing immediate assistance to the poor, usually through churches. But in the 19th century, the increasing social problems could not be met by churches' remedies alone.
In the 1850s and 1860s, organized charities began to emerge. In New York, Charles Loring Brace founded the New York Children's Aid Society, and he addressed the needs of street children by sending them to vocational schools. Brace helped as many as 300,000 children over his life.
These organizations were entirely privately financed. But they functioned very effectively in many aspects, becoming an integral part of US society.
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