In Usufruct to the Living

An especially underappreciated problem regarding philanthropic power concerns the way in which charitable gifts exercise control over future generations. Charitable bequests and trusts, which are popular instruments of donation, bind future generations to respect the wills of past donors. This chapter draws on views of Thomas Jefferson—noted critic of institutions that favor the dead over the living—to illustrate the problem of “dead-hand control.” Jefferson’s perspective helps us to appreciate that donations meant to benefit future persons may also mistreat them by imposing conditions on their use of resources. The chapter argues that generations have an interest in sovereignty over their common affairs that qualifies how resources can be donated across time. Though it ultimately defends the practice of intergenerational philanthropy, the chapter also shows how taking the value of sovereignty seriously recommends restrictions on the duration that donors can expect to have their wills honored.

Hospital Patrons and Social Networks

This chapter argues that the highly commercial environment of thirteenth-century Champagne infused pious giving with even greater meaning, particularly bequests made to a charitable institution like a hospital, which had as its central mission the performance of the works of mercy. During the course of the thirteenth century, during which the number of bequests to traditional Benedictine monastic houses declined, the scale of giving to hospitals actually increased. The range of people from different social classes making charitable bequests also expanded, reflective of what one might term the growing democratization of charity. As compared with donors to monastic houses, however, lay donors to hospitals placed less emphasis on intercessory prayer and requested anniversary masses in exchange for donations less often than donors to monasteries. Instead, hospital donors focused on the performance of the works of mercy, which, in the economy of salvation, they viewed as the most efficacious form of currency. Those making bequests to hospitals were also frequently guided by pragmatic considerations. Some donors had a family connection to a hospital, with a relative working there whom they wished to help. Others made bequests as an entry gift to a hospital, or with the expectation that they might one day wish to join the hospital's religious community. The chapter then focuses on the patrons of Champagne's hospitals and interrogates what these hospitals meant to them.

Pious Funds across the Pacific (1668–1823):Charitable Bequests or Credit Source?

“Mercy,” preached Fray Casimiro Díaz, “is the legitimate daughter of compassion. And the indigent exclaims, the widows, orphans, and destitute women broadcast, even the religious communities acclaim, that mercy is the distinctive virtue of this Holy Board, for your pious gifts reach all of them.” The Augustinian friar was addressing the guardians and members of Manila's Hermandad de la Misericordia (Confraternity of Mercy) in a mass that commemorated the anniversary of its foundation in mid September of 1743. At first glance, the occasion would not deserve much attention, another sermon praising the alms-giving labor of a confraternity. Spanish America swelled with similar institutions devoted to administering alms and endowments to sponsor prayers and charity. Yet, the Manila Misericordia was different. Church corporations in the Americas invested donations in low-interest annuities in perpetuity attached to property. Charity donors in Manila had found a better way to maximize pious gifts: by creating legacies to be invested in maritime trade loans at high interests.

Taxation

This chapter makes a limited attempt to grapple with certain philosophical questions about the design of an inheritance tax. These begin with the standard worry about tax avoidance (chiefly through a substitution effect whereby tax incentives switch from bequests to inter vivos gifts) and its connection with the distinction between taxing estates and taxing receipts. The chapter then moves on to the often ignored question of what to say about the place of charitable bequests as a means to reduce the overall tax liability of an estate, followed by a discussion of wealth taxes and hypothecation (dedicating the revenues from an inheritance tax to certain sorts of policy expenditure). The chapter ends with a few remarks about how the book’s proposals have some potential to raise consciousness in light of typical political rhetoric about inherited wealth.

Concepts of Charity: The Habsburg Empire and the South Moravian Example, 1750–1800

The article deals with the concept of charity (almsgiving, philanthropy) in the context of the changing religious and social situation in the Habsburg Empire between 1750 and 1800. The intellectual discussions, the administrative reforms and the testamentary practices of charity (charitable bequests) are followed in order to delineate the relationship between discourse and social practice. Although paradoxes can be observed, there was a clear common point for all three areas: the differentiation of the poor according to a new definition of “needs” and a tendency towards “practical” (and obligatory) charity. This shift from the post-Tridentine Catholic concept was accompanied – mainly in towns – by a significant transformation of the social space and structure.

Becoming Charitable: Predicting and Encouraging Charitable Bequests in Wills

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