Parting a billionaire from his money when he doesn’t want to give it to you is extremely difficult. It also doesn’t always give you the results you were hoping for. Consider the track records of countries now and in the past that have sought to use government power to markedly reduce inequality. Which ones seem like examples of outcomes you’d be happy with?
EA has had quite a bit of fast success (FTX notwithstanding) in inducing billionaires to part with their money willingly.
I think that countries for whom reducing inequality was almost a religious conviction, such as the USSR, had terrible governments which should never be replicated. However, I think that countries that invest in their public sector and social safety net more so than the US or the UK have very good track records today. There’s always the classic Scandinavia example and I think the UK’s rocky economic performance over the past twenty years has a lot to do with its push to privatize and reduce provision of public services. Germany does fairly well although they do tend to try to undercut the rest of the EU with their (more permissive) labor regulation. Impossible to tell for sure, but I think Japan would have had an even rougher go of it if it engaged in as little public investment as the Anglophone countries. The biggest issue for many of these countries is birth rate, although it’s worth noting that Scandinavia outperforms the rest of the EU on this except France and way outperforms East Asia, and their generous maternity/paternity leave is likely part of that.
Providing these public goods does indeed require persuading billionaires to give you money, and there is always the issue of capital flight. Thankfully, countries like the US and the UK are often the recipients of that capital flight because they have a large population, speak English, and have lots of fun things for rich people to do, plus lower taxes. So I’m sure that some amount of capital flight or attempts at tax evasion would result from these countries raising obligations on their richest citizens, but I think if anything it is likely to be less dramatic than what most of Europe has suffered for their welfare states, and I think the decision was still a net positive for those countries. In my reckoning, combining Northern European institutions with America’s birth rate and dynamic multiculturalism would probably result in even greater economic growth than America currently enjoys.
It’s all definitely up for debate though. Thanks for the response!
As you know, the question of how a government ought to provision for welfare and the morality and economics of inequality is a multifaceted debate that’s raged not for decades, but centuries. Let me give a personal example of why I think it’s best to avoid getting wrapped up in those debates in most cases.
One of my interests is the question of whether we ought to compensate people for selling a kidney. I’ve read dozens of news articles, many scholarly papers, and talked with doctors and economists. I’m a biomedical engineering grad student, have a philosophy/humanities background, and a decent familiarity with economics. Furthermore, I have a lot of experience with “diplomatic dialog,” facilitating friendly conversations in the context of sales, interviews, and teaching. So I think I’m unusually well-positioned to navigate this debate.
I literally just got off a two-hour phone call with a doctor who used to screen kidney donors to get his thoughts. He’s against legalization. A very wise and experienced person. Yet it took me two hours just to understand his chain of reasoning. Some of his views were internally inconsistent. I’d patiently talk through a line of thought with him, and we’d find that the reasoning was circular. Fortunately, he’s very patient, and our conversation was non-defensive, so that did not result in an ego conflict. What happened instead is that he’d import an entirely different argument that now became his true fundamental objection. And then there would be another one after that. And another one after that.
After two hours, I do think I understand his reasoning, more or less. Regardless of the practical health/economic aspects of the problem, and regardless of how the seller feels about their decision to engage in this transaction, he feels that it’s undignified for society to allow organs to be sold. Selling a kidney is not admirable, so it degrades the spirit of altruism that pervades kidney donation. It’s not the kind of society we should want to live in—an invasion of the sanctity of the body.
He’s willing to admit that this might not be the right way to think about dignity and altruism, but nobody on the pro-legalization side is taking this dimension of the problem seriously. And even if they did, there’s no cut-and-dry way to make the case that permitting kidney sales enhances human dignity, or sanctifies the body, or betters the moral worth of our society.
He doesn’t see the question as urgent. These matters transcend the practical urgency of a long and growing waitlist for kidney transplant, or the $28 billion the USA spends on dialysis annually. He’s perfectly willing to wait patiently for somebody to him personally to change his perspective on the dignity and symbolism of kidney sales. Until they do, he’s happy to stay with his present perspective, which as an added benefit is compatible with the law.
Now, I personally think that we should permit kidney sales in the short run, but that implantable dialysis will more or less completely eliminate demand for living kidneys within a few decades. I could make it my life’s work to construct a moral argument for kidney sales that might be persuasive to people like the doctor I spoke with today. But the debate’s been raging for decades, the Catholic church is on the other side, Federal law would have to be changed, there’s no clear argumentative strategy to change people’s minds about “dignity,” and the problem itself is temporary on long enough time scales.
Since I’m a biomedical engineer, I have the opportunity to work on the bioartificial kidney technology that I think will eventually replace living kidney transplant. I can also work on a lot of other technological solutions for human health problems, or policy issues that might be uncontroversial and make a big difference in human health. Why select a political issue where we’ve had decades of evidence of the inability to make progress, for reasons that are easy to understand once you start seeing what motivates people on each side of the debate?
When I shift from considering kidney sales, where the practical arguments are cut-and-dry in favor of permitting them, to measures to increase taxes to fund social services, where even the practical economic arguments are much more controversial, and where you’re not trying to permit a voluntary transaction but force a large confiscation of money from some of the most powerful individuals in the world, it seems to me that you’re not only at serious risk of doing harm, you’re at an even greater risk of failing to do good—just as many generations of our ancestors have.
This isn’t to say you’re wrong. It’s to say that this is what you’d have to persuade me of if you wanted to convince me, personally, that EA should be doing more progressive activism on taxation and welfare. But my warning is that this would probably have to start with the equivalent of the two-hour phone call I had earlier with the doctor, and it might turn out that I’d convince you, rather than the other way ’round. And either way, it would only be zero or one person who was convinced. It’s easy to get sucked into, but tough to scale or accomplish things with. That’s an important reason why I have chosen to pursue a career in technology rather than in politics, and have affiliated myself with a movement that focuses on philanthropic provision of goods and services rather than on trying to use government as the primary vehicle for its agenda.
If you think you can make a compelling case (i.e. a case that would convince me) that I’m wrong in my thinking, and that the best way to do good in the world might be for me to focus on politics in some way, let me know!
Thank you for the reply, it was very thought provoking. It seems to me you have successfully found a niche that provides higher altruistic ROI with regard to career than a large portion of political-adjacent careers. As far as I can tell, many STEM-inclined people can make their greatest impact by focusing on innovation and to a lesser extent earning-to-give.
I wrote a paper on kidney sales for an undergrad philosophy course, and with my small sliver of knowledge on the debate, I agree that it is likely not the best time sink for changing the world efficiently. I think the conclusion I came to is that if there was a strong social safety net (to reduce the incentive for impoverished people who may not be healthy enough to donate to attempt to do so anyways, as occurs when people try to donate blood more often than permitted in order to obtain the cash rewards), the kidneys were added to the waiting list rather than sold to the highest bidder, and participants were well informed of the risks, it would be a net positive to legalize a regulated market. But as you said, this is a debate where it is extremely difficult to be confident that one’s position would actually produce a net positive outcome in practice.
I feel very differently with regard to lack of public services—I think there is enough evidence to suggest that there is probably a pretty significant economic boost to be expected from investment in high-speed railways and single-payer healthcare, to say nothing of the moral impact of the latter. Plus,in contrast to allowing kidney sales, there seems to be far less emotional intuition warning me against such reforms. My conviction is strongly reinforced by the fact that most developed countries in the world provide these services, which are considered indispensable by most of the inhabitants of those countries. On the other hand, kidney sales have not been legalized anywhere in the world, as far as I’m aware.
As you point out, it may take a prohibitive amount of time for one of us to convince the other of our economic stances, but I will try to summarize my opposition to your points succinctly for the sake of it.
Efforts of ancestors in vain—I believe that the majority of policies that provide opportunities to working people in developed countries have had lasting and significant net positive impacts, and that when almost any of these policies are repealed (as many have been in the US and the UK over the last few decades), there is a marked negative impact on both natl GDP growth and natl wellbeing. In essence, it is not an all-or-nothing debate, but rather a struggle worth fighting every generation anew. I believe the American middle class as we knew it was largely created by policies from the 1930s-1970s, for example, and that its decline has been caused more by a shift rightward economically than by shipping jobs overseas, technological disruption, or any of the other explanations provided by some economists. Such arguments, in my view, fail to explain the totality of the change, or the fact that it has been so much more pronounced in countries that gutted their public sector.
Not good to act in opposition to billionaire interests—I think this defers unnecessarily to individuals who are citizens of developed nations, after all, and whose power similarly rests in the vehicles of corporations which also can be effectively regulated by national or international law. During the Gilded Age we had powerful, unprecedently rich men, and corporations wielded intolerable power over the lives of many of their workers. Then in the early 1900s Progressives came in and guaranteed shorter workdays, did some trust-busting, and passed a bunch of worker protections generally. FDR and LBJ continued that legacy. Now, we’ve gotten rid of the protections and the taxes on the hyper-wealthy that enabled them, and we’re in the same place again. The US experienced the most economic and social vitality as a nation in the interim between these two periods. Obviously, there is no way to test models of different historical economic and political decisions to see what changed what. But I feel at least 90% confident that it is better for the US to be farther left economically than it is currently, perhaps by going in some unorthodox direction, like embracing Georgism. I also think the butterfly impacts of such reforms often are far more relevant than they initially appear.
If you think it would be optimal for us to debate further, DM me, although I suspect the depth of our knowledge of economics is similar, so neither of us will be able to convert the other by pulling overwhelming data or expertise out of a hat.
Parting a billionaire from his money when he doesn’t want to give it to you is extremely difficult. It also doesn’t always give you the results you were hoping for. Consider the track records of countries now and in the past that have sought to use government power to markedly reduce inequality. Which ones seem like examples of outcomes you’d be happy with?
EA has had quite a bit of fast success (FTX notwithstanding) in inducing billionaires to part with their money willingly.
I think that countries for whom reducing inequality was almost a religious conviction, such as the USSR, had terrible governments which should never be replicated. However, I think that countries that invest in their public sector and social safety net more so than the US or the UK have very good track records today. There’s always the classic Scandinavia example and I think the UK’s rocky economic performance over the past twenty years has a lot to do with its push to privatize and reduce provision of public services. Germany does fairly well although they do tend to try to undercut the rest of the EU with their (more permissive) labor regulation. Impossible to tell for sure, but I think Japan would have had an even rougher go of it if it engaged in as little public investment as the Anglophone countries. The biggest issue for many of these countries is birth rate, although it’s worth noting that Scandinavia outperforms the rest of the EU on this except France and way outperforms East Asia, and their generous maternity/paternity leave is likely part of that.
Providing these public goods does indeed require persuading billionaires to give you money, and there is always the issue of capital flight. Thankfully, countries like the US and the UK are often the recipients of that capital flight because they have a large population, speak English, and have lots of fun things for rich people to do, plus lower taxes. So I’m sure that some amount of capital flight or attempts at tax evasion would result from these countries raising obligations on their richest citizens, but I think if anything it is likely to be less dramatic than what most of Europe has suffered for their welfare states, and I think the decision was still a net positive for those countries. In my reckoning, combining Northern European institutions with America’s birth rate and dynamic multiculturalism would probably result in even greater economic growth than America currently enjoys.
It’s all definitely up for debate though. Thanks for the response!
As you know, the question of how a government ought to provision for welfare and the morality and economics of inequality is a multifaceted debate that’s raged not for decades, but centuries. Let me give a personal example of why I think it’s best to avoid getting wrapped up in those debates in most cases.
One of my interests is the question of whether we ought to compensate people for selling a kidney. I’ve read dozens of news articles, many scholarly papers, and talked with doctors and economists. I’m a biomedical engineering grad student, have a philosophy/humanities background, and a decent familiarity with economics. Furthermore, I have a lot of experience with “diplomatic dialog,” facilitating friendly conversations in the context of sales, interviews, and teaching. So I think I’m unusually well-positioned to navigate this debate.
I literally just got off a two-hour phone call with a doctor who used to screen kidney donors to get his thoughts. He’s against legalization. A very wise and experienced person. Yet it took me two hours just to understand his chain of reasoning. Some of his views were internally inconsistent. I’d patiently talk through a line of thought with him, and we’d find that the reasoning was circular. Fortunately, he’s very patient, and our conversation was non-defensive, so that did not result in an ego conflict. What happened instead is that he’d import an entirely different argument that now became his true fundamental objection. And then there would be another one after that. And another one after that.
After two hours, I do think I understand his reasoning, more or less. Regardless of the practical health/economic aspects of the problem, and regardless of how the seller feels about their decision to engage in this transaction, he feels that it’s undignified for society to allow organs to be sold. Selling a kidney is not admirable, so it degrades the spirit of altruism that pervades kidney donation. It’s not the kind of society we should want to live in—an invasion of the sanctity of the body.
He’s willing to admit that this might not be the right way to think about dignity and altruism, but nobody on the pro-legalization side is taking this dimension of the problem seriously. And even if they did, there’s no cut-and-dry way to make the case that permitting kidney sales enhances human dignity, or sanctifies the body, or betters the moral worth of our society.
He doesn’t see the question as urgent. These matters transcend the practical urgency of a long and growing waitlist for kidney transplant, or the $28 billion the USA spends on dialysis annually. He’s perfectly willing to wait patiently for somebody to him personally to change his perspective on the dignity and symbolism of kidney sales. Until they do, he’s happy to stay with his present perspective, which as an added benefit is compatible with the law.
Now, I personally think that we should permit kidney sales in the short run, but that implantable dialysis will more or less completely eliminate demand for living kidneys within a few decades. I could make it my life’s work to construct a moral argument for kidney sales that might be persuasive to people like the doctor I spoke with today. But the debate’s been raging for decades, the Catholic church is on the other side, Federal law would have to be changed, there’s no clear argumentative strategy to change people’s minds about “dignity,” and the problem itself is temporary on long enough time scales.
Since I’m a biomedical engineer, I have the opportunity to work on the bioartificial kidney technology that I think will eventually replace living kidney transplant. I can also work on a lot of other technological solutions for human health problems, or policy issues that might be uncontroversial and make a big difference in human health. Why select a political issue where we’ve had decades of evidence of the inability to make progress, for reasons that are easy to understand once you start seeing what motivates people on each side of the debate?
When I shift from considering kidney sales, where the practical arguments are cut-and-dry in favor of permitting them, to measures to increase taxes to fund social services, where even the practical economic arguments are much more controversial, and where you’re not trying to permit a voluntary transaction but force a large confiscation of money from some of the most powerful individuals in the world, it seems to me that you’re not only at serious risk of doing harm, you’re at an even greater risk of failing to do good—just as many generations of our ancestors have.
This isn’t to say you’re wrong. It’s to say that this is what you’d have to persuade me of if you wanted to convince me, personally, that EA should be doing more progressive activism on taxation and welfare. But my warning is that this would probably have to start with the equivalent of the two-hour phone call I had earlier with the doctor, and it might turn out that I’d convince you, rather than the other way ’round. And either way, it would only be zero or one person who was convinced. It’s easy to get sucked into, but tough to scale or accomplish things with. That’s an important reason why I have chosen to pursue a career in technology rather than in politics, and have affiliated myself with a movement that focuses on philanthropic provision of goods and services rather than on trying to use government as the primary vehicle for its agenda.
If you think you can make a compelling case (i.e. a case that would convince me) that I’m wrong in my thinking, and that the best way to do good in the world might be for me to focus on politics in some way, let me know!
Thank you for the reply, it was very thought provoking. It seems to me you have successfully found a niche that provides higher altruistic ROI with regard to career than a large portion of political-adjacent careers. As far as I can tell, many STEM-inclined people can make their greatest impact by focusing on innovation and to a lesser extent earning-to-give.
I wrote a paper on kidney sales for an undergrad philosophy course, and with my small sliver of knowledge on the debate, I agree that it is likely not the best time sink for changing the world efficiently. I think the conclusion I came to is that if there was a strong social safety net (to reduce the incentive for impoverished people who may not be healthy enough to donate to attempt to do so anyways, as occurs when people try to donate blood more often than permitted in order to obtain the cash rewards), the kidneys were added to the waiting list rather than sold to the highest bidder, and participants were well informed of the risks, it would be a net positive to legalize a regulated market. But as you said, this is a debate where it is extremely difficult to be confident that one’s position would actually produce a net positive outcome in practice.
I feel very differently with regard to lack of public services—I think there is enough evidence to suggest that there is probably a pretty significant economic boost to be expected from investment in high-speed railways and single-payer healthcare, to say nothing of the moral impact of the latter. Plus, in contrast to allowing kidney sales, there seems to be far less emotional intuition warning me against such reforms. My conviction is strongly reinforced by the fact that most developed countries in the world provide these services, which are considered indispensable by most of the inhabitants of those countries. On the other hand, kidney sales have not been legalized anywhere in the world, as far as I’m aware.
As you point out, it may take a prohibitive amount of time for one of us to convince the other of our economic stances, but I will try to summarize my opposition to your points succinctly for the sake of it.
Efforts of ancestors in vain—I believe that the majority of policies that provide opportunities to working people in developed countries have had lasting and significant net positive impacts, and that when almost any of these policies are repealed (as many have been in the US and the UK over the last few decades), there is a marked negative impact on both natl GDP growth and natl wellbeing. In essence, it is not an all-or-nothing debate, but rather a struggle worth fighting every generation anew. I believe the American middle class as we knew it was largely created by policies from the 1930s-1970s, for example, and that its decline has been caused more by a shift rightward economically than by shipping jobs overseas, technological disruption, or any of the other explanations provided by some economists. Such arguments, in my view, fail to explain the totality of the change, or the fact that it has been so much more pronounced in countries that gutted their public sector.
Not good to act in opposition to billionaire interests—I think this defers unnecessarily to individuals who are citizens of developed nations, after all, and whose power similarly rests in the vehicles of corporations which also can be effectively regulated by national or international law. During the Gilded Age we had powerful, unprecedently rich men, and corporations wielded intolerable power over the lives of many of their workers. Then in the early 1900s Progressives came in and guaranteed shorter workdays, did some trust-busting, and passed a bunch of worker protections generally. FDR and LBJ continued that legacy. Now, we’ve gotten rid of the protections and the taxes on the hyper-wealthy that enabled them, and we’re in the same place again. The US experienced the most economic and social vitality as a nation in the interim between these two periods. Obviously, there is no way to test models of different historical economic and political decisions to see what changed what. But I feel at least 90% confident that it is better for the US to be farther left economically than it is currently, perhaps by going in some unorthodox direction, like embracing Georgism. I also think the butterfly impacts of such reforms often are far more relevant than they initially appear.
If you think it would be optimal for us to debate further, DM me, although I suspect the depth of our knowledge of economics is similar, so neither of us will be able to convert the other by pulling overwhelming data or expertise out of a hat.