Jackson Hole - Redux

Thanks for the comments on my latest post.  Part of my thought was informed by Ron Chernow's Titan, his biography of John D. Rocekfeller, Sr.  There are significant debates about the means by which wealth is created.  Those debates have much to do with the times and our attitudes many decades later about the effects of business actions on others.  Chernow paints a portrait of Rockefeller as a predatory businessman, but also spends more than half of the book on Rockefeller's family life - especially his religious convictions and his philanthropy.  So one answer to myself is that for Rockefeller, Sr., giving away his wealth (to Baptist causes, to the University of Chicago, and to what became the research center Rockefeller University, and others) was a manifestation of his religious ideals about stewardship (read: money is a tool to serve others).  That may have mixed with other impulses in his son, who was also driven by the need to improve the family name and reputation (Colonial Williamsburg both was an act of giving, as well as an effort to refurbish the name).  As TJD alluded to, I am generally not comfortable judging the moral rectitude of historical actors (though I admit there are some big exceptions).  It is just these contradictions in peoples lives that might history so interesting.  These are individual stories, so I concur with Salvatore that these things must be judged on an individual basis.  Together they might point toward an American "culture" of philanthropy. (OK - there is the title of my book, "The American Culture of Philanthropy"! Quite grandious!)