In 2005, the topic of domestic enterprises "not donating money" aroused widespread concern in society. According to the report of China Youth Daily on June 22, 2005, Xu Yongguang, vice president of china charity federation, revealed that there are more than/kloc-0 million enterprises registered in industry and commerce in China, but no more than/kloc-0 million have donated. In 2002, the per capita private donation in China was only RMB 0.92, less than one tenth of the per capita GDP of that year. In 2003, the per capita private donation in the United States was $828.7, the per capita income in China and the United States was 1:38, and the per capita charitable donation was 1:7300.
In 10 million enterprises, 99% have never participated in any donation, which is quite embarrassing. The per capita charitable donation in China and the United States is 1: 7300, which is even more embarrassing. The low enthusiasm of domestic enterprises and the public to participate in charity not only reflects the predicament faced by China's charity, but also reflects the extreme lack of charity culture of Chinese enterprises and the public.
Charity culture reflects whether a country's charity is developed, whether it has a distinct social appeal and guiding force, and also reflects the spirit that enterprises repay society with development results. A harmonious society allows wealth to be distributed for the third time, thus benefiting more poor people.
Market economy needs not only the development of enterprises, but also the extension and development of corporate culture. Charity culture, as an important part of corporate culture, carries the function of testing whether an enterprise has kindness, love and broad feelings. However, all enterprises with good cultural atmosphere have certain charitable cultural connotations and will repay our society by supporting the development of charity. The purpose of supporting charity is to let wealth enter the third distribution, promote the development of public welfare undertakings and help more poor people get rid of temporary difficulties. At present, the scale of charities in China is still relatively small. Most of the more than 100 charities in China are government-run, and their funds only account for 0. 1% of domestic GDP. The wealth distributed by the United States for the third time has accounted for 9%. At present, the charitable donations made by wealthy Americans-enterprises and individuals through various foundations have reached more than $670 billion.
Although the national conditions are different, the goal of charity is the same. The reason why there are so many people and so many rich people in the United States are keen on charity is because they have a good charity culture atmosphere, and they are all proud of participating in charity and have many charity models. For example, Benjamin Franklin was the founding father of the United States, a famous politician and scientist. He donated most of his wealth and established the famous University of Pennsylvania, which left a shining example for the later American rich and influenced generations of Americans. For example, at the end of 18, Rockefeller donated $30 million (equivalent to the current 10 billion) to open the University of Chicago, and Carnegie donated Carnegie University. Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, and his wife founded the Gates Charity Foundation in 2000, and invested $27 billion in one breath, making it the largest charity foundation in the world. He said that behind him, almost all the property will be left to this foundation. Financial tycoon Soros has donated $2.3 billion, although his wealth is not as much as anyone imagined. In the United States, corporate donations have formed a strong atmosphere. If rich people don't donate or donate less, they will be looked down upon and the company will lose face.
On the other hand, there are more than ten thousand enterprises in China, 99% of which have never participated in any donation, which is a great pity. However, the per capita charitable donation in China is less than 1 yuan, which is even more humiliating to the traditional virtues of helping others and helping the poor. The author thinks that with the development of economy, the group of rich people in China is rapidly "expanding", especially the rich people on the list every year are hard to count. Although they have accumulated wealth, their names rarely appear on the charity list, which shows that our enterprises and our rich people are still "wary" of charity, and have not yet integrated charity culture into corporate culture, so that charity culture and enterprises can grow healthily together.
In today's environment of advocating harmonious development, enterprises and rich people who get rich with social support should bear more responsibility for promoting harmonious social development. They should be at the forefront of promoting the development of charity. Vigorously promoting charity culture is an important way to promote the harmonious development of society.
Of course, it is not enough to encourage enterprises and the rich to participate in charity. As a country, we should also vigorously advocate charity culture and actively create a rich charity culture atmosphere. Not only enterprises and the rich, but also charity culture should be brought into the moral education system from now on. Primary and secondary school students will begin to cultivate their feelings for charity, guide them to deepen their understanding of charity and enhance their sense of responsibility for charity. In addition, more policy support should be given to the development of charity, such as tax reduction and exemption, encouraging the establishment of non-governmental charities, and strictly monitoring the whereabouts and use of charitable donations. Therefore, the mechanism is more flexible and non-governmental charitable organizations are more active. Only in this way can we create a strong atmosphere in which everyone pays attention to charity in the whole society and enrich the connotation of charity culture, thus promoting the continuous development of charity in China.
Charity culture in transition period
The resolution of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee pointed out that it is necessary to "improve the social security system linking social insurance, social assistance, social welfare and charity". This is the first time in our party's literature that the development of charity is clearly regarded as an important content and part of the social security system, and it is also the first time that the development of charity is mentioned as "mobilizing all positive factors most extensively and fully, and constantly improving the ability to build a harmonious socialist society".
It is suggested to start with the social assistance management office set up by the government in the streets (towns), and gradually transform it into the function of community and charitable organizations to jointly manage and exercise grass-roots offices by purchasing services, and gradually transform it into the function of community and charitable organizations to jointly manage and exercise grass-roots charitable organizations by purchasing services, giving it dual functions of helping people in need and raising funds in the community. At present, we can transfer the functions of vocational skills training and regular material donation of socially disadvantaged groups to charitable organizations by purchasing services to support and promote the development of social charity.
The Modern Development of Charity Culture
The rapid economic development in contemporary China has brought the outstanding demand for charity. Generally speaking, the higher the social benefits, the higher the demand for charity. Because interest means that the strong crowd out the weak, and charity represents the assistance of the strong to the weak. The tension between the strong and the weak, which is both crowding out and helping, is the internal mechanism that makes the society full of vitality, stability and order. But in many occasions where charity is needed, people often can't see the appearance of charity, and even if they do, they are often quite thin. Compared with some developed countries and even less developed countries in the world, it is an obvious fact that charity in China is in recession at present, which is not only manifested in the small amount of money donated by charity, but also in the weak concept of charity in society. In this regard, people who are eager to develop charity have given various explanations. Among them, what is worth remembering and urging us to act as soon as possible is the lack of charity culture in China.
Although it is often the best avoidance to attribute the cause of things to culture, all unexplained occasions can be freed by attributing them to culture, because culture itself is an obscure thing. But on the issue of charity, culture is indeed a statement with considerable explanatory power. However, even if we admit that there is something wrong with the charity culture, we need to know more about what is wrong with the culture. Some people think that there is something wrong with charity in China because people today have forgotten the traditional culture of China, and the charity culture has been "broken". Therefore, the best way to solve the problem is to reconnect with tradition. Returning to tradition has become the solution to the current charity problems in China.
Although there is some truth in this idea, traditionally, China people have a strong sense of charity, which can be seen in history books. Donation and charity are indeed more common than now, but people are eager to ignore an important point, that is, in today's world, charity has experienced a "modernization process". In some countries or cultural bodies with a long tradition of charity, charity has undergone profound changes from concept to practice. Therefore, for China, the real solution is not simply to connect the "broken" cultures, but to rebuild the charity culture of China in the 26th century through modernization on the basis of the traditional charity culture.
Charity is a "third field" different from market and government.
To rebuild China's charity culture, the first thing to be clear is the position and role of the state or government in charity. In the history of mankind, the government of China undertook the responsibility of guaranteeing people's basic living needs earlier. In the famine years, it is an institutionalized behavior for the government to open warehouses for disaster relief. Moreover, based on the political consideration of "the will of the people", charity has always been considered as the best thing the government can do to enhance its legitimacy. Therefore, it is a historical tradition in China that the government monopolizes charity.
However, in modern society, the responsibility of the government has been strictly limited to the scope of providing public goods through taxation. It is no longer the responsibility of the government to solve the difficulties of individual citizens or families beyond the legal responsibility of the state, but it needs to be solved through society. Therefore, charity belongs to the category of society and is a "third field" different from the market and the government. It is neither suitable for the profit logic of the market nor the public service logic of the government, but a public welfare behavior made by citizens or corporate citizens based on certain values.
At present, the phenomenon of "calling" charity by explicit or implicit administrative orders is widespread in China society, which is due to the helplessness that charity has not yet become a social trend and the old habit that the government is still used to engaging in charitable activities. Objectively, charities have become the "second tax" on some occasions. Changing the high-profile presence of the government in charitable activities, lifting the restriction that citizens' donations can only be invested in individual charitable organizations with government background, and opening up the space for non-governmental organizations to engage in charity are the contents and conditions for rebuilding charity culture in China.
Modern charity is not equal to "merit"
Citizens are the main body of charity, but they also need a process to change their concept of why they are charitable. There is no lack of charity and almsgiving in traditional China, but the ideas behind these charitable acts may not be suitable for today's charity. In the past, China people often associated charity and other good deeds with personal virtues or "achievements". The so-called "shadow merit" to build a good reputation or a good afterlife. However, in the modern concept of charity, the reason why a person does good deeds is not simply because of his personal motivation to do good deeds, but because he bears social responsibility to others. This responsibility is not an extraordinary virtue, but a self-imposed obligation, which is the embodiment of modern citizens' dominant position in public life. The transformation from personal virtue to public responsibility has made charity a "normal behavior". Whether to donate or not, and how much to donate, depends not only on one's ability, but also on one's understanding of social responsibility. This is the reason why it is widely circulated in the west that "excess wealth is as evil as excess weight". Famous sayings such as "it is a sin to leave a huge amount of wealth to the world" have led to the "absurd" move of the rich Americans against the abolition of inheritance tax. Wealth means responsibility, great wealth means great responsibility, and charity is the way to fulfill responsibility. This concept is the modern charity concept, and the behavior under the guidance of this concept is the modern charity behavior. On the other hand, it is precisely because charity is a kind of responsibility that we can see "quiet charity" in some societies with developed philanthropy, but we have not seen moral praise for huge donations. Raising charity to the moral level reflects not the advanced and mature charity culture, but the lag and naivety. It is the rich who are most capable of doing good deeds. Under the background of polarization between the rich and the poor, giving the rich too high moral status may lead to the concentration of social resources, including economic resources and moral resources, to some people, which is not conducive to social balance. Treating charity with a normal mind is an idea and mentality that needs to be established to rebuild China's charity culture.
Citizens regard charity as a personal obligation, which is the result of a society's charity culture being internalized by individuals. This internalization should be a flexible process, not a mandatory process. In other words, society can form an atmosphere of public opinion and advocate charitable donations, but it cannot force individuals to donate in any way, from administrative apportionment to extortion. Citizens' donation of their own money and things, in a legal sense, is the exercise of their right to control their own legitimate property independently, which is not subject to interference by others. Donation becomes good because it comes from the heart and is a proposition of free will, because all good must be free and an internal obedience to the highest moral instruction. Therefore, although modern charity culture does not highlight the personal virtue essence of doing good, it still defends the autonomy and freedom required by charity as a virtue, not only respects the freedom of individual donation, but also ensures that individuals donate to the objects or occasions they want from the system.
Modern charitable organizations bear the responsibility of explaining the purpose and effect of donations or donations to donors in detail. This transparent charity ensures that charity will not become a victim of fraud, and charity will not encourage the prevalence of hypocrisy caused by fraud. Creating all necessary conditions to effectively protect the rights of donors, so that their good intentions can be realized to the greatest extent, is also a principle that needs to be reflected through the system when rebuilding charity culture in China today.
Charity culture is a comprehensive system, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". People who really care about charity in China can start from some of the most urgent places at present. As long as we make joint efforts, China citizens' charitable ideas and behaviors will mature, and the long-standing charitable tradition will surely blossom into new cultural buds.