Philanthropy: The American Difference

Capitalism and philanthropy have always been closely tied. In the 1600s, when the Netherlands was gestating free trade and other modern business patterns, commercial negotiations often took place in taverns, and successful deals were frequently sealed with charitable contributions to the alms box. Today, philanthropy and business are entwined especially tightly in America. It’s expected that successful business barons in the U.S. will apply some portion of their wealth and creative energies to solving public problems via charitable efforts.

American capitalism differs from its European and Asian variants in part because of the historical nexus between commercial activities and religious impulses in the United States. Pew Research data show that the U.S. is by far the most religious of the world’s wealthy countries. The Calvinism that the Pilgrims brought with them to America treated economic fortune as something that the steward would voluntarily apply to uplift his fellow man.

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