I appreciate that you did a cause report on this topic! I’m also interested in finding good ways to protect and improve liberal democracy.
I disagree with your assessment that “Generally, economic policy is hard to affect through philanthropy and as such this does not seem to be a very tractable cause.” In the most recent 80,000 Hours interview, Alexander Berger cited macroeconomic stabilization as an Open Phil success story:
...we have funded for several years around macroeconomic stabilization policy. And I think the federal reserve and macroeconomic policymakers in the U.S. have really moved in our direction and adopted a lot of more expansionary policies and become more focused on increasing employment, relative to worrying about inflation. I think it’s really hard to attribute impact, so I’m not sure how much of that has to do with our funding, but it’s an area where I think the world has really moved our way, and we might’ve played a small role in that, and the stakes I think are quite high in terms of human wellbeing there. So I see that as a big win.
Also, anecdotally, I think there’s been a lot of movement in the U.S. toward “free-market progressive” policies on zoning reform, occupational licensing, and non-competes. For example, several U.S. municipalities have abolished single-family zoning, and the Biden administration recently issued an executive order targeting occupational licensing and non-competes. And I think the YIMBY movement has grown a lot. All of these reforms would likely promote economic growth and reduce inequality in my opinion. So I’m a lot more optimistic about economic reforms.
I suggest looking into two organizations:
Niskanen Center: One of their key policy areas is defending liberal democracy (a.k.a. the open society) from authoritarian populism.
The Neoliberal Project / Center for New Liberalism aims to push back against left- and right-populism by building a movement around a new “neoliberal” political identity. Their theory of change is that politics is organized around group identities by default, so in order to create policy change, you need to create a new political identity around advocating for a set of policies. They have chapters around the world that do local political advocacy, like the YIMBY movement does. (Disclaimer: I’ve been very involved in online neoliberal politics.)
Yes, agree that there are some low-hanging fruit for economic reform and progress can be made. I actually cite OPP’s macroeconomic stabilization policy efforts in the post that Alex Berger refers to. But as he says impact is hard to attribute, and given that their funding of this area seems somewhat small, I’d be surprised if you could lower interest rates of central banks significantly with only a few million dollars in advocacy funding.
I agree that there’s some progress on ‘”free-market progressive” policies on zoning reform, occupational licensing, and non-competes’, and that there maybe is room for more progress.
But do you think it has already translated into meaningful consumption increases in the lower income deciles?
There are some interesting numbers e.g. on land use reform in an FP report on zoning reform:
that suggest that the effects might be non-trivial if you can get them through. But I think one would have to do quite a bit of advocacy. For things like occupational licensing and zoning and non-compete, trade, macroeconomic policy you get quite strong push-back from vested interests and rent-seekers.
As I say in the next sentence: “Economic policy is also not very neglected by various stakeholders (e.g. political parties have very strong opinions on trade policy).
This contrasts with other things like preventing misinformation, which it seems to me you can often make more progress on, with less backlash.
I appreciate that you did a cause report on this topic! I’m also interested in finding good ways to protect and improve liberal democracy.
I disagree with your assessment that “Generally, economic policy is hard to affect through philanthropy and as such this does not seem to be a very tractable cause.” In the most recent 80,000 Hours interview, Alexander Berger cited macroeconomic stabilization as an Open Phil success story:
Also, anecdotally, I think there’s been a lot of movement in the U.S. toward “free-market progressive” policies on zoning reform, occupational licensing, and non-competes. For example, several U.S. municipalities have abolished single-family zoning, and the Biden administration recently issued an executive order targeting occupational licensing and non-competes. And I think the YIMBY movement has grown a lot. All of these reforms would likely promote economic growth and reduce inequality in my opinion. So I’m a lot more optimistic about economic reforms.
I suggest looking into two organizations:
Niskanen Center: One of their key policy areas is defending liberal democracy (a.k.a. the open society) from authoritarian populism.
The Neoliberal Project / Center for New Liberalism aims to push back against left- and right-populism by building a movement around a new “neoliberal” political identity. Their theory of change is that politics is organized around group identities by default, so in order to create policy change, you need to create a new political identity around advocating for a set of policies. They have chapters around the world that do local political advocacy, like the YIMBY movement does. (Disclaimer: I’ve been very involved in online neoliberal politics.)
Yes, agree that there are some low-hanging fruit for economic reform and progress can be made. I actually cite OPP’s macroeconomic stabilization policy efforts in the post that Alex Berger refers to. But as he says impact is hard to attribute, and given that their funding of this area seems somewhat small, I’d be surprised if you could lower interest rates of central banks significantly with only a few million dollars in advocacy funding.
I agree that there’s some progress on ‘”free-market progressive” policies on zoning reform, occupational licensing, and non-competes’, and that there maybe is room for more progress.
But do you think it has already translated into meaningful consumption increases in the lower income deciles?
There are some interesting numbers e.g. on land use reform in an FP report on zoning reform:
https://founderspledge.com/stories/housing-affordability-in-england-executive-summary
that suggest that the effects might be non-trivial if you can get them through. But I think one would have to do quite a bit of advocacy. For things like occupational licensing and zoning and non-compete, trade, macroeconomic policy you get quite strong push-back from vested interests and rent-seekers.
As I say in the next sentence: “Economic policy is also not very neglected by various stakeholders (e.g. political parties have very strong opinions on trade policy).
This contrasts with other things like preventing misinformation, which it seems to me you can often make more progress on, with less backlash.
Yeah, this makes total sense.