Prompt: In the interest of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk and have fun.
Any criticism or suggestion will be very appreciated!! Thank you!
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Why Not Donate?
Bill Gates, founder of the Microsoft Corporation, and Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world, have decided to host a dinner, which has already become known as the "Billionaire Banquet," in China on September 29. Aiming to promote the art of charitable donation, Gates and Buffett invited fifty of their recent minted brethren, who are supposed to be the richest of the newly rich in China.
The media that follows every update made by Gates and Buffett, however, takes a dim view of their attempts. Quoting China's most prominent philanthropist, Guang-biao Chen, Fortune magazine stated that only an insufficient number of the wealthy Chinese "'have the right virtues' to donate more to charity." The News Tribune analogously expressed its pessimism in words, "Many rich Chinese prefer to keep low profiles and hide their fortunes for fear of attracting attention. Some have only vague ideas of how best to put their wealth back into society."
Why, then, are the Chinese rich disinterested in Charities?
According to Forbes' World's Richest People and The 21st Century Talent Report, approximately 60% of the Chinese millionaires, who took spots on Forbes' annual list of the global wealthiest from 1999 to 2009, had Bachelor's Degrees; 27.44% of those took MBAs and even PhDs. Educationwise, the majority of the Chinese rich have received at least twelve years of moral education, which is a crucial component besides their own commercial acumen that, at some point, helps them achieve their goals. Businesswise, these people know clearly the affirmative local market effects resulted by charitable donations in a relationship society like China. Socialwise, shaping a benevolent image is conductive to reduce the conflicts between the rich and the poor. Thus, it is oversimplistic to impute the Chinese millionaires and their erroneous "virtues." In fact, Chinese rich's indifference of charities is an outcome of Chinese culture as well as politics.
Stepping on the historical stage, we can see that social injustice and the deficiency of religious beliefs profoundly stimulate people's desire to monopolize their wealth--this is especially true in China after the two devastations, namely the Ten-year Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap. The Cultural Revolution eradicated almost every religion rooted in ancient China such as Confucianism and Taoism, while the Great Leap, a radical and infeasible industrialization movement, released the third horseman and his black horse. Haunted by both meaning and material want, Chinese were forced to live unscrupulously and to alter their traditional ideology, beginning to hoard money, the medium of market exchange, as a universal guarantee.
After such transformation, the motivation of charity grows only from the absolute control of one's properties, which could be interpreted as an encouragement and a commitment to people who donate their possessions. Just like the Chinese proverb says, "Perseverance derives from property." "Property" stands for stable material bases while "perseverance" stands for constant spiritual pursuit. That is, the motivation of charity is tightly related to however much wealth people have control of; the protection over citizens' private properties can farthest release the public's zeal and ambition of creating wealth. Only when the millionaires are granted the absolute control over their fortunes can vast donations be made without worries or uncertainties. After all, the rich wouldn't want to donate all their wealth and send their children to make Kong Pao chicken for living.
Lacking a sense of security furthermore prevents Chinese millionaires from charitable activities. According to Southern Weekly's research on China's newly rich, over half of them thought that enormous wealth brought them "a sense of insecurity" and "annoyance." This anxiety might be brought by their illegal sources of wealth and grey incomes, which, to a great extend, reflects the instability of Chinese wealthy people's fortunes: Under the circumstance of one-party dictatorship, the legality and legitimacy wholly depend on the Communist policies; a mere scrap of paper can enrich as well as impoverish a person. Self-contradictory decisions made by the government steadily consolidate the negative impacts on the newly rich resulted by the ambiguous policies. Hence it is impossible for China's millionaires not to worry about their wealth, which might eventually evaporate in one day.
As approached from this perspective, the "Billionaire Banquet" reflects not only the personalities of the minted Chinese but also the social contradictions between politics and culture, private interests and charitable welfare. Jack Ma, CEO of the Alibaba Group, distinguished entrepreneurs from packmen in 2005 Fortune Forum: "entrepreneurs (should) shift their attentions away from money itself and aim to achieve certain social values with a sense of mission." Despite the rosy prospect Ma illustrated, without the change in ideology, the absolute control over their lucre and the confidence of the governing party, rich people in China will never gain a sense of security. Consequently, monopolizing their own wealth and elbowing aside the charitable activities will still be the most judicious choice.
"Socialwise, shaping a benevolent image is conductive to reduce the conflicts between the rich and the poor." Correction: Social-wise
Also-- do you mean conducive? rather than 'conductive'? conductive doesn't seem appropriate.
"This anxiety might be brought by their illegal sources of wealth and grey incomes, which, to a great extend, reflects the instability of Chinese wealthy people's fortunes: Under the circumstance of one-party dictatorship, the legality and legitimacy wholly depend on the Communist policies; a mere scrap of paper can enrich as well as impoverish a person."
Correction: 'extend' should be 'extent'
Rephrase: "Chinese wealthy people's" This sounds very awkward. Be more succinct.
"Chinese rich's indifference" Again, rephrase "Chinese rich's" this sounds awkward, and disrupts the flow of the sentence.
Besides Grammatical errors, I think this essay is very interesting! I enjoyed reading it towards the end, when your main point seemed to become more clear. While you do a fantastic job at making me want to find out what your main idea is, you wait too long to give the reader hints at what you are actually saying. Try being a little more clear as to the point you are trying to convey: Social constraints of ideology/culture as well as fear of Communist oppression keep 'charity' from being applicable, or even beneficial, in the minds of Chinese Elite?
Maybe try to be a little less formal in the introduction. It almost has a 'news reporting' essence to it, which only serves to detach you (the writer) from me (the reader).
Otherwise, great job! Very insightful
