The country I am from – France – has a proud tradition of an active state which has institutionalised solidarity and generosity through taxation. I value how this ambitious re-distribution of wealth pays for liberty and equality in our society.
Yet for me, when the State provides for all social, cultural, health, educational services and infrastructures, I worry that we lose a little bit of our fraternité: the sense that we are bound together by something more than just obligation. To me, philanthropy is the answer: not as a substitute of state intervention but as a parallel and powerful movement where people consciously give and receive and can feel free but part of a whole.
