¹ Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).Google Scholar

² Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar

³ In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick defends the feasibility and viability of philanthropy (pp. 265–28) and complains that most theories of distributive justice focus exclusively on the rights of the recipient and neglect the rights of the person to make gifts to another person (p. 168).

⁴ Writing about relief for the poor, Friedman noted in Capitalism and Freedom: ‘One resource, and in many ways the most desirable, is private charity. It is noteworthy that the heyday of laissez-faire, the middle and late 19th century in Britain and the United States, saw an extraordinary proliferation of private eleemosynary organizations and institutions. One of the major costs of the extension of governmental welfare activities has been the corresponding decline in private charitable activity’ (p. 190). It is interesting to note that this difficulty was anticipated before the emergence of the modern welfare state. Writing in the early 1930s, Macaden, Elizabeth commented, ‘It was commonly expected that the extension of the different forms of social services in the pre-war years would speedily see the extinction of private benefaction’ (The New Philanthropy: A Study of the Relations between the Statutory and Voluntary Social Services (London: Allen and Unwin, 1934), p. 244).Google Scholar

⁵ In the late 1940s, the British government considered the possibility of taking over charity properties in the same way that the National Health Service incorporated the voluntary hospitals. See Hill, Christopher P., ‘England and Wales’, in Neuhoff, Klaus and Pavel, Uwe, eds., Trusts and Foundations in Europe (London: Bedford Square Press, 1971), p. 215.Google Scholar

⁶ See Owen, David, English Philanthropy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 176–8.Google Scholar

⁷ Kropotkin, Peter, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (London: Allen Lane, 1972), pp. 196–7.Google Scholar

⁸ Kropotkin, , Mutual Aid, p. 198.Google Scholar

⁹ Taylor, Michael, Anarchy and Cooperation (London: Wiley, 1976), pp. 134–6.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Taylor, , Anarchy and Cooperation, p. 135.Google Scholar

¹¹ Robert Goodin argues that available social-psychological evidence indicates that Taylor's argument is at least plausible. Thus experiments show that people who have helped in the past are more likely to help in the future and that people who see another make a donation are likely to make a donation. See ‘Moral Atrophy in the Welfare State’ (unpublished paper, 1978).Google Scholar See also Bar-Tai, Daniel, Prosocial Behavior: Theory and Research (New York: Wiley, 1976), pp. 66–71.Google Scholar

¹² Taylor, , Anarchy and Cooperation, p. 134.Google Scholar

¹³ Titmuss, Richard, The Gift Relationship (New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 1971).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, p. 94.Google Scholar As a result of more recent efforts by the United States government, inspired, in part, by Titmuss's attack on the American blood donor system, the proportion of blood supplied by voluntary donors has increased. See Sapolsky, Harvey M. and Finkelstein, Stan N., ‘Blood policy revisited – A new look at “The Gift Relationship”, The Public Interest, XLVI (1977), 15–27.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For an excellent discussion of how market relations replace and destroy communal ties, see Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation (New York: Reinhart, 1944).Google Scholar Social psychologists have offered evidence to support Titmuss' claim that the market undermines altruism. Studies have shown that the middle classes, and particularly the entrepreneurial middle classes as distinguished from the bureaucratic middle classes, are more likely to behave according to exchange rather than altruistic norms. These studies assume that middle-class people are more inclined to accept the exchange ethos of the market. One study reported that middle-class women were more likely than working-class women to say that they would stop helping those who refused to offer help in return. See Muir, Donal E. and Weinstein, Eugene A., ‘The Social Debt: An Investigation of Lower-Class and Middle-Class Norms of Social Obligation’, American Sociological Review, XXVII (1962), 532–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In another study, entrepreneurial middle-class subjects, but not bureaucratic middle-class and working-class subjects, regulated their helping behaviour towards a person according to how much that person had helped them. See Berkowitz, L. and Friedman, P., ‘Some Social Class Differences in Helping Behavior’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, v (1967), 217–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ This argument provoked a considerable controversy. Kenneth Arrow argues that the market does not necessarily erode altruism; instead it merely increases the options available to the individual who is able either to donate or to sell his blood. See ‘Gifts and Exchanges’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, I (1972), 349–50.Google Scholar Nathan Glazer also doubts that the market has adverse effects; he thinks that people do not consider whether others sell blood when they make their decision to give. See ‘Blood’, The Public Interest, XXIV (1971), 89.Google Scholar But Peter Singer, in a rejoinder to Arrow, vehemently defends Titmuss' argument. Singer says, ‘The idea that others are depending on one's generosity and concern, that one may oneself, in an emergency, need the assistance of a stranger, the feeling that there is still this vital area in which we must rely on the good will of others rather than the profit motive – all these vague ideas and feelings are incompatible with the existence of a market in blood.’ See ‘Altruism and Commerce: A Defense of Titmuss Against Arrow’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, II (1973), 318.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, p. 225.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, p. 238.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Glazer and Singer also believe that the existence of the NHS fosters altruism in Britain. But their explanation for this is much more banal. They suggest that that NHS strengthens community bonds. As Glazer puts it: ‘I am convinced that some part of the explanation is to be found in the fact that there is one National Health Service, open to all on the same basis, making no distinctions in health care between rich and poor, and because blood is costless to the consumer, freely given on the basis of need.’ See ‘Blood’, p. 93.Google Scholar

²⁰ In the major reviews of the literature such as Bar-Tai, , Prosocial BehaviorGoogle Scholar, Krebs, Dennis L., ‘Altruism – An Examination of the Concept and a Review of the Literature’, Psychological Bulletin, LXXIII (1970), 258–307CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wright, Derek, The Psychology of Moral Behaviour (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1971), pp. 126–51Google Scholar, no reference is made to the possible impact of the state. This is also the case for the leading anthology in the field; see Macauley, J. R. and Berkowitz, L., eds., Altruism and Helping Behavior (New York: Academic Press, 1970).Google Scholar

²¹ Gergen, Kenneth J. et al. , ‘Obligation, Donor Resources, and Reaction to Aid in Three Countries’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, XXXI (1975), 390–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, p. 5.Google Scholar

²³ Newby, Howard, The Deferential Worker (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1977), pp. 429–31.Google Scholar It has been argued that the state has taken over this role of social control through the allocation of gifts in the form of relief. Not only does the state become more generous when the disadvantaged become especially obstreperous and more stingy when the poor are placid, but aid is often given in such a way as to control the behaviour of the recipients. See, for example, Piven, Frances Fox and Cloward, Richard A., Regulating the Poor (New York: Random House, 1971).Google Scholar

²⁴ Homans, George, Social Behaviour: Its Elementary Forms (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 319.Google Scholar

²⁵ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, pp. 71–4.Google Scholar He draws most heavily on Mauss, Marcel. The Gift, translated by Cunnison, I. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954)Google Scholar and Lévi-Strauss, Clause, Elementary Structures of Kinship, revised edn. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969).Google Scholar

²⁶ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, p. 215.Google Scholar

²⁷ Titmuss, , The Gift Relationship, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar Although Titmuss does not mention them, donations to private groups funding research into cancer and heart disease may be impersonal gifts in the sense that, as with blood donations, those who might benefit include strangers as well as the donors.

²⁸ Harrison, Brian, ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, Victorian Studies, IX (1966), 362–8.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Beveridge, Lord, Voluntary Action: A Report on Methods of Social Advance (London: Allen and Unwin, 1948), pp. 356–80Google Scholar; Rodgers, Betsy, Cloak of Charity: Studies in Eighteenth Century Philanthropy (London: Methuen, 1949), pp. 7–10Google Scholar; and Beveridge, Lord and Wells, A. F., eds., The Evidence for Voluntary Action (London: Allen and Unwin, 1949), p. 57.Google Scholar

³⁰ Goffman, Erving, Stigma (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1968), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

³¹ Nightingale, Benedict, Charities (London: Allen Lane, 1973), p. 190.Google Scholar

³² For discussions of the alleged salutary effects of reciprocity see Mauss, , The Gift, pp. 63–81Google Scholar; and Malinowski, Bronislaw, Crime and Custom in Savage Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1926), p. 46–9.Google Scholar

³³ These figures are drawn from a 1973 supplemental edition of the 1971 Wells Collection of U.K. Charitable Giving Reports (London: Wells International Donors Advisory Services Ltd., 1973), p. 5.Google Scholar Figures are calculated on the basis of an exchange rate of £1 = $2.00.

³⁴ Wells Collection, p. 8.Google Scholar

³⁵ Willis, J. R. M. and Hardwick, P. J. W., Tax Expenditures in the United Kingdom (London: Heinemann Education Books, 1978), p. 58.Google Scholar

³⁶ Willis, and Hardwick, , Tax Expenditures, p. 59.Google Scholar

³⁷ Blume, Hilary, Fund Raising by Charities (London: Bedford Square Press, 1973), pp. 26–9.Google Scholar

³⁸ Report of the Goodman Committee, Charity Law and Voluntary Organisations (London: Bedford Square Press, 1976), p. 54.Google Scholar

³⁹ Goodman Report, Charity Law, p. 52.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Goodman Report, Charity Law, p. 54.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Wells Collection, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴² Wells Collection, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴³ Thus a 1975 Gallup International survey found that 58 per cent of American respondents but only 23 per cent of British respondents said that their religious beliefs were important to them. Reported in Public Opinion, II (1979), 38.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Wells Collection, pp. 18–19Google Scholar and Giving USA (New York: American Association of Fund-Raising Council, 1975), p. 37.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Barker, E. H., Report on the Review of Parochial Charities other than Ecclesiastical in East Suffolk (Ipswich: Community Council for Suffolk, 1974).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hill, , ‘England and Wales’, p. 216.Google Scholar