The biggest share of US charitable giving goes to megachurches and other religious institutions who don't need it.
A fair amount of the rest goes on political lobbying and influencing.
The proportion that goes on direct no-strings plain simple humanitarian work is not all that huge.
Most of the US population lives in cities. If the US wasn't "individualism run amok" it wouldn't have tent cities of homeless people, and its health industry wouldn't be bankrupting half a million people a year. (For example.)
You're correct that the largest share of giving goes to religiously-affiliated organizations, but the idea that the largest shares goes specifically to megachurches seems unlikely to me. If you've seen this reported somewhere I'm primed to change my mind.
And I don't think it's totally fair to exclude religious donations as somehow "not valid", especially in the context of the critique that Americans don't value community with each other. Religious charities tend have less access to alternative funding sources, so rely on these donations more. Note: I'm very much not religious.
> A fair amount of the rest goes on political lobbying and influencing.
I get a little mixed-up on whether donations to non-tax-deductible non-profits "count" in the metrics (e.g., does my donation to the ACLU which has a lobbying arm count just as my donation to the ACLU Foundation which cannot be used that way?). Nevertheless, I think it's wrong-minded to discredit charitable giving to organizations that influence public policy given the multiplicative impact that policy has on the lives of people and communities. Some of the biggest impacts to the lives of people came out of organized efforts to influence policy.
> If the US wasn't "individualism run amok" it wouldn't have tent cities of homeless people, and its health industry wouldn't be bankrupting half a million people a year.
This feels like a pretty uncharitable and over-simplification of very complex issues that also get into inter-state dynamics. I also think there's an error made in treating US culture as some sort of homogenous cultural construct. More than many other countries, the US is constantly at war with itself culturally.
Charity is peak individualism. In real communal places helping those in need is handled structured and organized, not just hinging on individual decisions.
Charity is not individualism. You’re making a false equivalence between collectivism and the government. There are huge collectivist communities in the US (generally centered around religions) that have very structured and organized ways of helping those in need.
It is peak collectivism to accomplish this without requiring the monopoly on violence and the taxation that comes with it.
You literally said charity is individualism, with the implication being that anything voluntary (which is charity) is not collectivism. for it to not be voluntary, you need the monopoly on violence to force it.
Charity used to structured and organized locally with Local churches, rotary clubs, and Samaritan organizations working to help less well off people in a town/neighborhood/city.
All this has fallen to the wayside in the US as we have some weird form of individualism permiating on both sides of the political spectrum.
US charitable giving alone suggests your view of the country as individualism run amok is likely not the whole story.