The discontent of modern philanthropy is revealed in what appears to be a widespread uncertainty about, perhaps even dissatisfaction with, ideas such as those expressed by Rockefeller. It is heresy to some to put a high value on the search for gain and profits. Economic work is less noble than intellectual or creative effort, for one thing, and capitalism is destructive of the finer values.

We are concerned, wrote Herbert Marcuse,

with sensitivity and sensibility, creative imagination and play, becoming forces of transformation. As such they would guide, for example, the total reconstruction of our cities and the countryside; the restoration of nature after the elimination of the violence and the destructiveness of capitalist industrialization; the creation of internal and external spaces for privacy, individual autonomy, tranquillity; the elimination of noise, of captive audiences, of enforced togetherness, of pollution, of ugliness. These are not—and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough—snobbish and romantic demands. Biologists today have emphasized that these are organic needs for the human organism, and that their arrest, their perversion and destruction by capitalist society, actually mutilates the human organism, not only in a figurative way, but in a very real and literal sense.

I believe that it is only in such a universe that man can be truly freed, and human relationships between free beings established. I believe that such a universe guided also Marx's concept of socialism, and that these aesthetic needs and goals must from the beginning be present in the reconstruction of society, and not only in the end or in the far future....

Quite apart from the work itself and who provides it Rockefeller believed that there must be strong individual motivation and involvement or that the person's very character and integrity would suffer. To speak of a job as a right means that employment will be provided regardless of the person's "will" to sustain her- or himself.

Two conclusions, in passing:

1. Socialist societies by definition are organized in such a way that the state assumes primary responsibility for the well-being of individuals and for the well-being of the culture as well. Socialism seems to be a form of political organization that claims to obviate the need for voluntary philanthropy.

2. A socialist society changes the terms of how self-worth and individual dignity are achieved. They are not earned by the work of individuals, as Rockefeller assumed was necessary; they are a blessing of the state.

I have belabored this point because I believe that it is the principal point of contention among us. Those who believe that even private philanthropy undercuts the will to work and vitiates the necessity for each person to stand on his or her own feet are, I expect, largely absent from the deliberations of Independent Sector.

The tension that might exist is between those who see voluntary philanthropy as the means to an end in which the state assumes far greater responsibility for meeting individual needs—toward what I have called "socialism" earlier—and those who believe that voluntary philanthropy is a social value worth preserving in its own right; that neither compassion nor community will ever be adequately served either by the marketplace or by government.

I adapted the title of this essay from Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents. I might have borrowed another title from him: The Future of an Illusion. Some believe that human nature at its core makes philanthropy illusory, as Freud believed religion to be; philanthropy is an example of what in Marxist terms is called "false consciousness," an ideological sleight-of-hand that tries to put a benevolent face on an exploitative system.

One very serious charge that is levied against the philanthropic tradition from within is the charge that it has abandoned its original role of helping the poor and turned its resources toward subsidizing the pleasures and diversions of the rich.* Others argue that the shift away from "welfare" in philanthropy has simply reflected the vast increase of government programs in that field.

*One would not think so, given the relatively small proportion of gifts to the arts, but it raises another interesting question: How do the purposes of giving differ between giving by the rich and giving by the poor? Research indicates that the poor put religion and health before art; is that true of the rich? Or do the rich also give to art because they have more money to give?

There has also been a different sort of emphasis shift: the expansion of public policy activities in the independent sector. One strategy sees the primary work of philanthropy as influencing the ideas that will ultimately take form in legislation. Whether the legislation addresses the problems of the poor or the support of the arts, it is legislation and the government funding that comes with it that is at stake.

Another change in strategy is vividly reflected in the membership of Independent Sector: the proliferation of single-issue organizations, some of which tend to be very closely attached to partisan political activity.

As practitioners, most of our energies are engaged in improving our knowledge of how to perform our particular jobs. What is at issue in philanthropy, however, are the most important issues facing our society and the world. Behind what we do are assumptions about what is good for individuals and how their interests can best be balanced with those of society.

We don't often talk about it, partly because we're preoccupied with other things and partly because it sounds dangerously presumptuous, but we are engaged in the struggle for man's soul.

That is one reason I find the reminiscences of John D. Rockefeller so engaging: There wasn't any question in his mind that that is what human effort is supposed to be about, whether in economic activity or in the support of education.