The Philanthropic Enterprise

From Big State and Small Society, to Small State and Big Society: Reflections on Richard Cornuelle’s Healing America

By Peter J. Boettke and Paola A. Suarez

If we rethink the scope of government, then by necessity we rethink its scale. We don’t get thinner by tightening our belt, but as we get thinner, we require a smaller belt.

Midwestern Liberal: A Smithian “Reclaiming of the American Dream”

By Robert F. Garnett, Jr.

Consequentialism and Philanthropy: The Legacy of a Revolutionary

By Heather Wood Ion

(Re)Considering the Independent Sector

By Roger A. Lohmann

Richard Cornuelle’s Quest for Community: Reflections on “De-nationalizing Community”

By William Schambra

Government Versus Community: Reflections on Cornuelle’s “De-nationalizing Community”

By John McClaughry

New Work for the Invisible Hands of Business

By David Ellerman

Better and Worser Angels, and their Invisible Hands

By Frederick Turner

A Radical Reform for Nonprofit Tax Exemption: A Thought Experiment

By William C. Dennis

What is needed is a new consideration of the effect of tax exemption on the status of American philanthropy.

Creating a Culture of Gift

By Frederick Turner

Philanthropy seems to lack a representative cultural voice in the arts today, so what might be the major themes of an artistic and cultural movement devoted to the life of philanthropy?

Giving and Human Excellence: The Paradigm of Liberal Philanthropy

By Richard B. Gunderman

The prevailing view today neglects what is ultimately philanthropy’s most important mission: enabling as many people as possible to participate in philanthropic activity.

Philanthropy, Economy, and Human Betterment: A Conversation with Kenneth Boulding

By Robert F. Garnett, Jr.

The consensus among economists today, and indeed since Adam Smith, is that philanthropy plays no essential role in the formal theory or institutional structure of a complex, decentralized economy.

The Transformation of Philanthropy: Causes, Processes, and Foreseeable Results

By George McCully

Philanthropy is undergoing a classic paradigm shift—a particular kind of historical change, which has a usefully intelligible character and direction. The generic phenomenon was identified by Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962), and was readily applied in other fields of historical scholarship, especially to describe revolutionary change. More broadly applied, it refers to the total transformation of a mature field of human endeavor—“mature” in the sense of fully and coherently organized in its conceptualization, methodology, technology, and demographics, and fitting into its broader historical milieu, including technology, economy, societal infrastructure, cultural norms, and institutions.

Empowering, Not Enfeebling: Beyond the ‘Market V. State’ Dichotomy

By Michael Munger

The very core of philanthropy is the desire to do something, and rightly so. But sometimes we need to pull back and let individuals work to form their own associations, based on their own goals and taking advantage of their dispersed knowledge and diverse talents.

By “Simply Staying Possesses All”: Must Freedom and Limits be Opposed?

By Elisabeth Cervantes

The beauty of Frost’s meditation on the relationship of freedom and limits is that it reflects how the soul should be disposed toward the Divine.

Poverty and Politics in Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism

By Christine Dunn Henderson

Alexis de Tocqueville's Memoir on Pauperism can help us understand the unintended consequences of apparently benign “solutions” and can help us become more fully aware of the difficulties of solving the problem of need in the modern world.

Why State-Led Humanitarian Action Fails

By Christopher J. Coyne

Foreign aid intended to alleviate poverty has largely failed and, still worse, in many cases caused additional harms to those who were already suffering.

Superphilanthropy

By Max Borders

Will the ties of community based on mutual need continue to fray thanks to centralized charity (welfare) and the comfort of the coming plenty? Or will abundance lower the costs of each of us to become a superphilanthropist?

Education for Charity: A Spiritual Visitation

By Richard B. Gunderman

How can we educate for charity? How can we help those we care most about realize their full charitable potential? We might explore the human ascent from the pit of avarice to the heights of charity.

Pioneer Virtues

By Heather Wood Ion

For the Western pioneers, justice was a concrete action to be taken in specific circumstances, not an abstraction; happiness was a pursuit, not a right; and democratic decisions were a practical more than a political responsibility.

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How good (and bad) ideas spread

Despite technology’s role in distributing information, the diffusion of ideas is still essentially a social phenomenon.

Making Sense of Social Complexity

How might we as individuals, groups, and society as a whole might make use of deeply human tools—from psychology to social learning—to make sense of the complex world in which we live?

Polycentric Innovation

A selection of articles exploring various aspects of polycentric innovation and the conditions necessary that allow entrepreneurs of all stripes to pursue ways to improve their industry, the culture, and their communities.

Loneliness and Its Antidotes

This collection of articles draws attention to the loneliness that pervades our society while considering what antidotes might serve to build meaningful connections between us.

The Future of Work

While policymakers have a role in building a proper scaffolding for workers, what role might philanthropy, business, and social entrepreneurs play in ensuring that the individuals of our society not only survive the transition, but thrive in the midst of it?