European tax law doesn't let wealthy people write off donations to the same extent as American tax law.
The US also has clans (eg Waltons) that pass on heavily intact dynastic wealth, however it's more split / less common in the US.
There is no European Rockefeller or Carnegie story, or Gates story, or Buffett story. There is no European Giving Pledge. The best explanation is that it's an American cultural distiction, as Rockefeller & Carnegie predate the modern European welfare state.
Arnault, Pinault, Ortega, Bettencourt, Wertheimer, Schwarz, Quandt, and dozens more including the numerous large billionaires in Russia - they have no plans to give away all of their wealth (or eg at least half as in cases of those that signed the Giving Pledge), it's extremely rare there.
Bernard Arnault has $100 billion, existing in an economy less than 1/7th the size of the US (ie he towers over France in a way that even Gates and Bezos don't in relation to the US; I'm not making a direct wealth-GDP comparison; indirect, in that national and individual wealth often heavily correlates to economic output). Why isn't he giving it all away right now? He's 71 years old, why doesn't he have a foundation with $50 billion in it? France has a lot of poverty and homelessness, among other problems that would obviously benefit from the money.
Some people that signed the Giving Pledge: Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, MacKenzie Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Harold Hamm, Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, George Lucas, Dustin Moskovitz, Gordon Moore, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Ronald Perelman, Paul Singer, Mark Zuckerberg.
There is $600 billion in lifetime wealth right there, in that short part of the list.
Gates and Buffett have tried to recruit the wealthy from all over the world to sign on. Where are all the great European fortunes? They won't do it.
If private donations are more entrenched in a society for religious reasons, then this will likely also influence people who have no religious motives.
Another explanation would be that the gap between rich and poor is larger in the US than in Europe, and so rich people in the US have a worse conscience than rich people in Europe (who often turn out to be much richer than they think they are and also show it less on average).
Which creates a selection bias. Additionally indirectly EU billionaires that get their wealth from EU sourced labour tend to pay more in taxes albeit indirectly. Meanwhile their governments end up being more charitable. (if you try to compare this do not make the common flaw of not excluding the US gov "donations" which generally come down to. "We give you money and you buy our military equipment" or similar.
Also in the US giving away to charity = not paying it in taxes to a greater extent than in most of Europe which makes this more apparent. How do you think Gates so vastly increased his wealth during the timeframe where he pledged to give away so much (was it half?) of it?
>including the numerous large billionaires in Russia
There's some of your xyz stories of wealth from nothing. Upheaval after the soviet union. People there to catch the wave and boom. Some oligarchs out of nowhere. Tho i think most of em had connections during soviet times.
You'll find such rich from nowhere stories in China's ultra rich of today too.
Similarly Carnegie and Rockefeller arose during a time of upheaval and big changes as the US advanced and caught up to Europe. Buffet I wouldn't call such a story as he pulled himself from super rich and privileged to ultra rich tho note how he at least publicly decried paying much less taxes than his employees speaking of a class warfare they're winning.
>There is no European Giving Pledge.
...The giving pledge is an american org which had a mostly american focus and exposure tho the signees include asians, Africans and Europeans just the same.
>Bernard Arnault has $100 billion, existing in an economy less than 1/7th the size of the US (ie he towers over France in a way that even Gates and Bezos don't in the US). Why isn't he giving it all away right now? He's 71 years old, why doesn't he have a foundation with $50 billion in it? France has a lot of poverty and homelessness, among other problems that would obviously benefit from the money.
Because some people are just greedy. It's hard to attribute such individual actions to a cultural distinction with some exceptions where we can look at for example the (British) royalty still exists (which with all it's ultra rich dukes and the like is much bigger than you think) after centuries. Such long term wealth being more of a subcultural/intra-familial thing where mentality and entitlement is passed on. Also note how the US has more than 10 times as many billionaires per capita than for example my country (Belgium).
Such cultural distinction also falls flat if you'd try to attribute it to some kind of character difference that pulls trough among non hereditary ultra-wealthy on either side of the pond as practically all of them that i can think of achieved that status using anticompetitive practices in some way or another. As such every billionaire hereditary or not tends to show a flaw in the surrounding systems.
Is it because the role of the state is supposed to be so much greater in Europe? Whereas in the US, personal / family charity takes the place of a less encompassing social role of government?
Just doing some random searching, I find reports that US charitable giving is 2 to 5x greater than in European countries (as share of GDP).
Maybe it's also tied up in the US tendency to give donations to political causes, etc? Or the idea that the newness of American cities, towns led to a culture of people contributing to civic works (whereas in Europe, most things already "existed")? Like how in the US, universities had to be founded and funded by benefactors in an ongoing way, whereas in Europe, they're so old and "set for life" that they don't need alumni to support them (or are more fully funded by the state)?