This is sort of an off the cuff ramble of an answer for a topic which deserves more careful thinking, so I might make some hand-wavy statements and grand sweeping claims which I will not endorse later, but:
First off, I feel that it’s a little unhelpful to frame the question this way. It implicitly forces answers to conflate some fairly separate concepts together 1) The System 2) leftists 3) critiques of EA.
Here’s a similarly sort of unhelpful way to ask a question:
What are these “cognitive biases” that effective altruist critiques of veganism are seeking to make us aware of?
How would you answer?
Most effective altruists support veganism! The central insight motivating most vegan practices is similar to the central insight of EA. Don’t lose sight of that just because some branches of effective altruists think AI risk rather than veganism is a best possible way to go about doing good, and cite cognitive biases as the reason why people might not realize that AI risk is the top priority.
Cognitive Biases are a highly useful but fully generalizable concept that can be used to support or critique literally anything. You should seek to understand cognitive biases them in their own right...not only in the light of how someone has used them to form a “critique of veganism” by advocating for AI risk instead.
That’s how you’d answer, right? So, in answer to your question:
What exactly is the system EA’s (leftist) critics are seeking to change?
Most ideologically consistent leftists support EA, or would begin supporting it once they learn what it is. Utilitarianism / widening of the moral circle is very similar to ordinary lefty egalitarianism. Don’t lose sight of that just because some branches of the left don’t think some particular EA method are the best possible way to save the world, and cite Failure to Challenge the System as the reason.
The System is a highly useful but fully generalizable concept that can be used to support or critique literally anything. You should seek to understand it in its own right...not only in the light of how someone might invoke it to form a “critique of (non-systemic) effective altruism” by advocating for systemic change instead
I hope this analogy made my point—this question implicitly exaggerates a very minor conflict, setting up an oppositional framework which does not really need to exist.
...okay, so to actually attempt to answer the quesiton rather than subvert it. Please note that the following are not my own views, but a fairly off the cuff representation of my understanding of a set of views that other people hold. Some of these are “oversimplified” versions of views that I do roughly hold, while others are views that I think are false or misguided.
What is the system?: Here’s one oversimplified version of the story: from the lower to upper paleolithic, egalitarian hunter gatherers gradually depleted the natural ecology. Prior to the depletion, generally most able bodied persons could easily provide for themselves and several dependents via foraging. Therefore, it was difficult for anyone to coerce anyone else, no concepts of private property were developed, and people weren’t too fussy about who was related to whom.
In the neolithic, the ecology was generally getting depleted and resources were getting scarce. Hard work and farming became increasingly necessary to survive and people had incentive to violently hoard land, hoard resources, and control the labor of others. “The System” is the power structures that emerged thereby. It includes concepts of private property, slavery, marriage (which was generally a form of slavery), social control of reproduction, social control of sex, caste, class, racism, etc—all mechanisms ultimately meant to justify the power held by the powerful. Much like cognitive biases, these ideas are deeply built into the way all of us think, and distort our judgement. (E.g. do you believe “stealing” is wrong? Some might argue that this is the cultural programming of The System talking. Without conceptions of property, there can be no notion of stealing)
Despite resource scarcity declining due to tech advance, the bulk of human societies are still operating off those neolithic power hierarchies, and the attending harmful structures and concepts are still in place. “Changing the system” often implies steps to re-equalizing the distribution of power and resources, or otherwise dismantling the structures that keep power in the hands of the powerful.
By insisting that the circle of moral concern includes all of humanity (at least), and actively engaging in a process which redistributes resources to the global poor, effective altruists would generally be considered as a source of positive contributing to the dismantling of “The System”. I do think the average leftist would think Effective Altruism, properly pitched, is generally a good idea—As would the average person regardless of ideology, realistically, if you stuck to the basic premises and didn’t get too into some of the more unusual conclusions that they sometimes are taken to.
So how come some common left critiques of EAs invoke “The System”?:
Again, I don’t (entirely) agree with all these views, I’m explaining them.
1) Back when the public perception of EA was that it was about “earning to give” and “donating”...especially when it seemed like “earning to give” meant directing your talent to extractive corporate institutions, the critique was that donations do not actually alter the system of power. Consider that a feudal lord may “give” alms to the serf out of noblesse oblige, but the fundamentally extractive relationship between the lord and serf remains unchanged. I put “give” in quotes because, if you really want to understand The System, you have to stop implicitly thinking of the “lord’s” “ownership” of the things they “nobly” “give” to the “serf” as in any way legitimate in the first place. The lord and serf may both conceptualize this exchange as the lord showing kindness towards the serf, but the reality is that the lord, or his ancestors, actually create and perpetuate the situation in the first place. Imagine the circularity of the lord calculating he had made a magnanimous “impact” by giving the serf a bit of the gold… that was won by trading the grain which the serf had toiled for in the first place. Earning to give is a little reminiscent of this...particularly in fields like finance, where you’re essentially working for the “lord” in this analogy.
2) Corporate environments maximize profit. Effective altruists maximize impact. As both these things are ultimately geared towards maximizing something that ultimately boils down to a number, effective altruist language often sounds an awful lot like corporate language, and people who “succeed” in effective altruism look and sound an awful lot like people who “succeed” in corporate environments. This breeds a sense of distrust. There’s a long history within leftism of groups of people “selling out”—claiming to try to change the system from inside, but then turning their backs on the powerless once they got power. To some degree, this similarity may create distasteful perceptions of a person’s “value” within effective altruism that is analogous to the distasteful perception of a person’s “value” in a capitalist society. (E.g. capitalist society treats people who are good at earning money as sort of morally superior. Changing “earning money” to “causing impact” can cause similarly wrong thinking)
3) EAs to some extent come off as viewing the global poor as “people to help” rather than “people to empower”. The effective altruist themself is viewed as the hero and agent of change, not the people they are helping. There is not that much discussion of the people we are helping as agents of change who might play an important part in their own liberation. (This last one happens to be a critique I personally agree with fairly wholeheartedly, and plan to write more on later)
To the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is incorrect, as EA enters the policy arena more and more, we will once again come in friction with leftist (and other political movements), unlike EA has since its inception. The difference this time is we would be asserting the systemic change we’re pursuing is more effective (and/or in other ways better) than the systemic change other movements are engaging in. And if that’s the case, I think EA needs to engage the communities of our critics just as critically as they have engaged us. This is something I’ve begun working on myself.
I would strongly recommend not creating a false dichotomy between “EA” and “Leftists”, and setting up these things as somehow opposed or at odds. I’m approximately an EA. I’m approximately a leftist. While there are leftist-style critiques of EA, and EA-style critiques of leftism, I wouldn’t say that there’s any particular tension between these frameworks.
There is really no need to draw lines and label things according to ideology in that manner. I think the most productive reply to a “X-ist” critique of EA is an X-ist support of EA, or better yet, a re-purposing of EA to fulfill X-ist values. (Yes, there are some value systems for which this cannot work...but the egalitarian left is definitely not among those value systems)
to the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is correct, EA should internalize this criticism, and should effectively change socioeconomic systems better than leftists ever expected from us
Yes.
And to that I would add, don’t needlessly frame EA as fundamentally in opposition to anyone’s values. EA can be framework for figuring out strategic ways to fulfill your values regardless of what those values are. (Up to a point—but again, “leftists” are well within the pale of that point.)
...and perhaps better than leftist political movements themselves (lots of them don’t appear to be active or at least effective in actually changing “the system” they themselves criticize EA for neglecting).
Well, I think this is an unhelpful tone. It is, again, setting up EA as something different and better than leftism, rather than a way for us to fulfill our values—even if our values aren’t all exactly the same as each others. This isn’t particular to leftism. If you wanted the members of a church congregation to donate to Givewell, you should focus on shared values of charity, not “EAs could save more souls than Christianity ever could”. The goal for EA is not to engage against other ideologies, the goal (to the extent that EA ideas are good and true, which obviously they may not all be) is to become part of the fabric of common sense by which other ideologies operate and try to perpetuate their goals.
Beyond the tone it’s also just not true, in my opinion. Seems to me that social change does in fact occur constantly due to political movements, all the time. What’s more, I’m pretty sure that the widespread acceptance of the basic building block concepts of effective altruism (such as, all people are equally important) are largely due to these leftist social movements. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that EA itself is at least in part among the products of these social movements.
I think you’re underestimating the level of hostility most socialists and communists have towards philanthropy and EA in particular. In my experience (online only) EAs receive consistent, active and preemptive hostility from leftist groups, including vicious attacks on personality and character rather than mere disagreement about ends and means. It’s naive to think that small questions of framing would shift this relationship.
Of course it’s important to frame things in such a way that a sizeable minority of leftists go along with us, but that’s always going to be in opposition to concerted hostility from powerful people within the leftist ecosystem. And really this is more a matter of public-facing communication rather than stuff on this forum.
The goal for EA is not to engage against other ideologies
It’s a perfectly valid goal. If other ideologies are wrong (or, to put it in subjective terms, if they contradict our own values) then we ought to defeat them—if that is in fact possible and the most effective strategy in pragmatic terms. There’s nothing special about other people’s ideologies that renders them immune to criticism and change like anything else.
EA can be framework for figuring out strategic ways to fulfill your values
It might be useful to promote this to other people in some cases, but as a concept of EA this view is philosophically untenable. See: https://philpapers.org/rec/BEREAH-3
Strongly upvoted. Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.
Utilitarianism / widening of the moral circle is very similar to ordinary lefty egalitarianism. Don’t lose sight of that just because some branches of the left don’t think some particular EA method are the best possible way to save the world, and cite Failure to Challenge the System as the reason.
At least one leftist critique of EA has made the case while leftist political movements and EA can find common ground in the ideals shared between egalitarianism and utilitarianism, through an egalitarian lens, the framing of altruism should be seen by all leftists as problematic. From “5 Problems with Effective Altruism”, by Connor Woodman, published in Novara Media in June 2016:
4. Solidarity is a better moral framework than altruism.
‘Aid’ has paternalistic undertones. Instead, we should be looking to support and join in transnational solidarity with movements in the west and Global South: indigenous peoples, landless peasants, precarious garment workers. As Monique Deveaux puts it: “By failing to see the poor as actual or prospective agents of justice [EA’s approaches] risk ignoring the root political causes of, and best remedies for, entrenched poverty.”
The best way to show solidarity is to strike at the heart of global inequality in our own land. There are an array of solidarity groups that seek to change western foreign policy and support modern-day national liberation movements. There are also variouswestern NGOs which seek to injure the production of structural injustice in the west.
Words like solidarity – along with class, imperialism and exploitation – are scrubbed from the EA lexicon. Perhaps they should relaunch as Effective Solidarity.
“The System” is the power structures that emerged thereby. It includes concepts of private property, slavery, marriage (which was generally a form of slavery), social control of reproduction, social control of sex, caste, class, racism, etc—all mechanisms ultimately meant to justify the power held by the powerful. [...]
Despite resource scarcity declining due to tech advance, the bulk of human societies are still operating off those neolithic power hierarchies, and the attending harmful structures and concepts are still in place.
I’m aware of this. Some leftist critics of EA come from an essentially Marxist perspective (i.e., “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”) While not all contemporary Marxists, some leftists take this to a logical conclusion known as class reductionism: the idea other apparent kinds of oppression like racism and sexism are absolutely functions of classism, and so this is the only kind of anti-oppression politics leftists need or should prioritize (in spite of Urban Dictionary’s contention, I’m aware this is a position in fact advanced by some people, although it’s true the accusation as often levelled is unsound). Obviously, there are disagreements over class reductionism within leftism that have nothing to do with EA.
It’s ambiguous whether EA’s leftist critics are primarily talking about ‘systemic change’ in terms of economic class, or through an intersectional lens, and see race, sex, sexuality, or other dimensions of oppression to be just as important as economics in what in EA’s approaches should change. So, my original question could have been formulated as: to what extent is leftist criticism of EA class reductionist, or intersectionalist?
2) Corporate environments maximize profit. Effective altruists maximize impact. As both these things are ultimately geared towards maximizing something that ultimately boils down to a number, effective altruist language often sounds an awful lot like corporate language, and people who “succeed” in effective altruism look and sound an awful lot like people who “succeed” in corporate environments. This breeds a sense of distrust. There’s a long history within leftism of groups of people “selling out”—claiming to try to change the system from inside, but then turning their backs on the powerless once they got power. To some degree, this similarity may create distasteful perceptions of a person’s “value” within effective altruism that is analogous to the distasteful perception of a person’s “value” in a capitalist society. (E.g. capitalist society treats people who are good at earning money as sort of morally superior. Changing “earning money” to “causing impact” can cause similarly wrong thinking)
This is a major source of implicit distrust some leftists would have upon being introduced to EA that has been just below the surface of my thinking on this subject, but I’ve never seen anyone in EA articulate this point so well.
3) EAs to some extent come off as viewing the global poor as “people to help” rather than “people to empower”. The effective altruist themself is viewed as the hero and agent of change, not the people they are helping. There is not that much discussion of the people we are helping as agents of change who might play an important part in their own liberation.
This is essentially the criticism of EA I quoted above from the Novara Media article. You’re right this is a criticism of EA that isn’t inherently leftist, but it is one leftists tend to make most often. It’s one I agree with. I look forward to your writing on it. Please feel free to reach out to me for help in writing it, or for proofreading, editing, or feedback on the draft.
I would strongly recommend not creating a false dichotomy between “EA” and “Leftists”, and setting up these things as somehow opposed or at odds.
I’m aware of this, especially because criticisms of EA by leftists outside EA are confounded by the fact most of the EA community already is leftist, and critics often lack awareness of this. I was just utilizing this frame because it’s one the debate has historically been situated in by how leftist critics of EA have imposed this dichotomy on the conversation between themselves, and the EA community.
Well, I think this is an unhelpful tone. It is, again, setting up EA as something different and better than leftism, rather than a way for us to fulfill our values—even if our values aren’t all exactly the same as each others. This isn’t particular to leftism.
I should have been more specific above. If I didn’t think the was room for cooperation or collaboration between EA and any leftist political movements, I would have said ‘most’ or ‘all’ of them are ineffective, or countereffective, by the lights of overlapping principles of both EA and leftist politics. However, while it may not be most, there are at least some leftist factions I do think EA is qualified in asserting we are better than at providing people with opportunities to pursue their own autonomy and liberation. EA should be, and thus rightly is, open to an earnest and ongoing dialogue with leftist political movements, even some of the most radical among them. Nobody has to take it from me. No less than William MacAskill has said in a closing address at EAG that EA should be open-minded to diverse intellectual, political, and ideological perspectives, and thus should not assume something like Marxism is wrong on principle, in response to what he presumably saw as an insufficient degree of open-mindedness in the very movement he co-founded. Yet EA can’t take that to a conclusion of undermining its own principles.
All variety of leftist ideologies from history are on the upswing today, as politics becomes more polarized, and more people are shifting leftward (and, of course, rightward as well) away from the centre. This has impelled some radical anti-capitalists to spread in the last few years as a propaganda the meme “liberals get the bullet too”. If this was inspired by they ideology of, say, Leninism, then while even if EA shouldn’t moralize in asserting ourselves as “better”, this would be sufficient grounds for EA to deny a positive association with them, even if the line is meant only rhetorically or symbolically. This would be justified even if we would at the same time build bridges to other leftist movements that have shown themselves more conducive to cooperation with EA, such as those Marxists who would be willing to seek common ground with EA. Of course, as there are many ideologies on the Left, including whole families of ideologies totally incompatible with EA, I believe we must be clear about this. Like you yourself said, this isn’t unique to leftists. With regards to the Right, EA could build bridges to conservatism, while nonetheless totally rejecting a notion we might ally ourselves with the family of rightist ideologies we could call “supremacism”.
The goal for EA is not to engage against other ideologies, the goal (to the extent that EA ideas are good and true, which obviously they may not all be) is to become part of the fabric of common sense by which other ideologies operate and try to perpetuate their goals.
To reframe my last point in the context of your words, if EA is to become part of humanity’s fabric of moral common sense, we must recognize there are ideologies that don’t operate under that fabric in the perpetuation of their goals, and go against the grain of both EA and the fabric of common sense. For EA to be worth anything, we must on principle be willing to engage against those ideologies. Of course, EA can and should be willing to ally itself with those leftists who’d seek to expand the circle of moral concern against those who would seek to shrink it to get ahead, no matter what their original ideals were.
This is with regards to political ideologies where either the disagreement over fundamental values, or at least basic facts that inform our moral judgements, are irreconcilable. Yet there will also be political movements with which EA can reconcile, as we would share the same fundamental values, but EA will nonetheless be responsible to criticize or challenge, on the grounds those movements are, in practice, using means or pursuing ends that put them in opposition to those of EA. Current Affairsis a socialist/radical leftist magazine that I believe represents the kinds of leftist movements with which EA can find common ground. Yet when I was seeking the same kind of conciliation you’re seeking in this thread, in another discussion of socialism and effective altruism, kbog impressed upon me the importance of EA’s willingness to push back against those policy prescriptions that would fail to increase well-being as much as could be done simply because of a failure of effectiveness, if not altruistic intent. This conclusion is an unfortunate one even to me, as like myself I believe most of EA wouldn’t want to have engage others in this way, but it may be necessary. I believe our willingness to live up to that responsibility is one of the few things that distinguishes EA at all from any other community predicated on doing good.
What’s more, I’m pretty sure that the widespread acceptance of the basic building block concepts of effective altruism (such as, all people are equally important) are largely due to these leftist social movements. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that EA itself is at least in part among the products of these social movements.
This is with regards to political ideologies where either the disagreement over fundamental values, or at least basic facts that inform our moral judgements, are irreconcilable. Yet there will also be political movements with which EA can reconcile, as we would share the same fundamental values, but EA will nonetheless be responsible to criticize or challenge, on the grounds those movements are, in practice, using means or pursuing ends that put them in opposition to those of EA.
I’m going to critique Connor’s article, and in doing so attempt to “lead by example” in showing how I think critiques of this type are best engaged.
The best way to show solidarity is to strike at the heart of global inequality in our own land.
There’s two problems with Connor’s article, and they both have to do with this sentence.
The less important problem: Who is the “our” in the phrase “our own land”? We’re on the internet, yet Connor just assumes the reader’s allegiances, identity, location, etc. Why is everyone who is not in some particular land implicitly excluded from the conversation? Why is “us” not everyone and “our land” not the Earth?
EA is just as guilty of this, for example when people talk about dollars going farther “overseas”. This is the internet, donors and academics and direct workers and so on live in every country, so where is “local” and where is “overseas”, exactly? For all EA’s globalist ambitious, there is this assumption that people who are actually in a low-middle income country aren’t a part of the conversation. (I agree with everything the “dollar overseas” article actually says, just to be clear. The problem is what the phrasing means about the assumptions of the writers.)
It’s bad when Connor does it and it’s bad when effective altruists do it. Yes, we are writing for a specific audience, but that audience is anyone who takes the time to understand EA ideas and can speak the language written. This is part of what I’m talking about when I say that EA makes some very harmful assumptions about who exactly the agents of change are going to be and the scope of who “effective altruists” potentially are. This problem is not limited to EAs, it is widespread.
The problem isn’t the phrasing, of course, it’s what the phrasing indicates about the writer.
The more important problem, and on this forum, this one is preaching to the choir of course, is 2) You can’t just assume that your solidarity group is the most effective way to do things. Someone still has to do an impact evaluation on your social movement and the flow of talent and resources through that movement, including the particularactivities of any particular organization enacting that movement.
Thus far, Effective Altruists are at the forefront of actually attempting to do this in a transparent way for altruistic organizations. The expansion to policy change is still in its infancy, but …I would not be surprised if impact evaluations of attempting political movements and policy changes begin surfacing at some point.
Nor can you just assume that the best way to do things is local and that people should for some mysterious reason focus on things “in their own lands”. Yes, it may in fact be beneficial to be local at times, but...you have to actually check, you have to have some reasonable account of why this is the most effective thing for you to do.
Once you agree on certain very basic premises (that all humans are roughly equally important moral subjects, that the results of your actions are important, etc) I think all effective altruism really asks is that you attempt process of actually estimating the effect of your use of resources and talentin a rigorous way. This applies regardless of whether your method is philanthropy or collective action.
(What would Connor say if they read my comment? I suspect they would at the very least admit that it was not ideal to implicitly assume their audience like that. But I’d like to think any shrewd supporter of collective action would eventually ask...”Well okay, how do I actually do an impact evaluation of my collective action related plans?” And the result would hopefully be more rigorous and effective collective action, which is more likely to actually accomplish what it was intended to accomplish. I think it’s important that the response deconstructed the false dichotomy between “collective action” and “effective altruism”. The critic should begin asking: “okay, disagreements aside, what might these effective altruist frameworks for evaluating impact do for me?” and “If I think that this other thing is more effective, how can I quantitatively prove it?”)
I think the “less important problem” is related to the “more important problem”. For Connor, even if we grant that collective action is the best thing, the implicitly western “us” limits his vision as to what forms collective action could take, and which social movements people like himself might direct money, talent, or other resources towards. (For EAs, I would speculate that the implicit “us” limits our vision in different, more complicated ways, having to do with under-valuing certain forms of human capital in accomplishing EA goals—Just as Connor just assumes local is better, I think EAs sometimes just assume certain things that EAs tend to assume about exactly who is well placed to make effective impact (and therefore, who needs EA oriented advice, resources, education, training, etc). it’s a subject I’m still thinking about, and it’s the one I hope to write about later.
For all EA’s globalist ambitious, there is this assumption that people who are actually in a low-middle income country aren’t a part of the conversation
Come on, the assumption of the writers is “people looking to us for philanthropy advice are predominantly living in the First World,” and that assumption is correct. (And it’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy, either).
The problem isn’t the phrasing, of course, it’s what the phrasing indicates about the writer.
OK, then how do you know that it doesn’t merely indicate that the writer is good at writing and marketing?
You can’t just assume that your solidarity group is the most effective way to do things. Someone still has to do an impact evaluation on your social movement and the flow of talent and resources through that movement, including the particular activities of any particular organization enacting that movement.
More evaluations and analyses are always nice (and some EA orgs have done that kind of thing, I believe). But their value can be dubious and it may just be a fruitless meta trap. You may think that an EA organization is under-allocating time and money for meta evaluations, but other people are going to disagree, and the reasons for such disagreement need to be properly addressed before this kind of thing can be used as a general criticism.
No one has a monopoly on critiquing people merely for having unexamined assumptions. If you start it, it turns into a game of whataboutism and petty status-seeking where no actually useful progress is made to help with important efforts in the real world. Drop the methodology wars and focus on making actual progress.
I think that’s a little unfair. It wasn’t just have an “unexamined assumption”, he just declared that solidarity was the best way and named some organizations he liked, with no attempt at estimating and quantifying. And he’s critiquing EA, an ideology whose claim to fame is impact evaluations. Can an EA saying “okay that’s great, I agree that could be true… but how about having a quantitative impact evaluation… of any kind, at all, just to help cement the case” really be characterized as “whataboutism” / methodology war?
(I don’t think I agree with your first paragraph, but I do think it’s fair to argue that “but not all readers are in high income countries” is whataboutism until I more fully expand on what I think the practical implications are on impact evaluation. I’m going to save the discussion about the practical problems that arise from being first world centric for a different post, or drop them, depending on how my opinion changes after I’ve put more thought into it.)
I wish I could even more strongly upvote this. I think the tension between EA and leftism is largely a product of mutual misunderstanding. In general, I think there is more overlap and room for cooperation than disagreement (particularly on things like open borders, decarceration, wealth redistribution/addressing inequality). I would encourage EAs to check out a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting in their hometown. Even if you strongly disagree with leftism/socialism, you’ll see a very different method of organizing people committed to helping others, which I have found an educational contrast with how we do things at EA NYC. DSA is great at involving lots of members in impactful local campaigns (supporting policies like universal rent control or medicare for all, organizing tenants, or supporting electoral candidates).
For the people who think that the left is disorganized and ineffective, I would encourage you to read more about the DSA’s electoral successes in the past few years (good overview of the DSA here: https://newrepublic.com/article/153768/inside-democratic-socialists-america-struggle-political-mainstream and a shorter piece by Nathan Robinson https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/why-i-love-the-d-s-a). Congresswomen AOC and Rashida Tlaib were DSA members and probably would not have won without the DSA’s grassroots support. Tiffany Caban is a DSA-backed public defender who has a real shot at becoming the next Queens District Attorney, an extraordinarily powerful position. Queens has over 2M people and the DA can unilaterally decide a lot of criminal justice policy in their jurisdiction. If Bernie wins the primary and general, DSA will have played a large role in turning out grassroots volunteers.
I’m not advocating that EA actively engage in political campaigns or radically change the way its local groups are structured. I just think that EAs who are interested in policy change go to some DSA events, because I think the DSA understands how political change happens far better than almost everyone I know in EA. Even if you think their priorities are dead wrong, they have been massively successful on an annual budget of less than $1m (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133109557).
I think the tension between EA and leftism is largely a product of mutual misunderstanding.
Yet persistent attempts to explain EA have accomplished, as far as I can tell, nothing in the way of improving leftist attitudes towards EA.
The reason there is tension is that the socialist movement gains status and notability when they condemn the things that are associated with capitalism in the public conscience. It’s really that simple. They are not dispassionate philosophers trying to understand things, they are a political movement that seeks attention and power. And they can gain much more attention and power if they position themselves as loud critics of EA than if they attempt a long quiet slog through the mud of rigorous cause prioritization. Of course EA seeks attention and power too, but with a very different set of constraints and incentives.
Eh, I’ve explained EA to a lot of lefties I meet and almost all of them have never heard of it, but are on board with the basics. However, my interpretation of and description of EA is pretty consistent with my lefty principles (both are extensions of radical egalitarian principles to me), and I’m sure lots of lefties would not like how market-friendly EA tends to be. I say some version of: EA is a social movement of people trying to do as much good as possible, using evidence to inform their perspective. This generally leads to people giving money to highly effective charities, giving up animal products, and prioritizing the long-term future.
Current Affairs overall is fairly amenable to EA and has a large platform within the left. I don’t think “they are a political movement that seeks attention and power” is a fair or complete characterization of the left. The people I know on the left genuinely believe that their preferred policies will improve people’s lives (e.g. single payer, increase minimum wage, more worker coops, etc.). You may disagree with their prescriptions, although based on the pro-market sources you tend to cite on these topics, you may not be interrogating your own biases enough. But if you believe what the typical DSA member does (that we know what the right policies are to address inequality and healthcare, and the only thing standing in the way of making them happen are entrenched wealthy interests), then their strategy of mobilizing large numbers of people to organize and canvass for these issues is a smart one. The EA approach to policy will only help affect things on the margin or in very technocratic roles, IMO. These things are important too, but EA has demonstrated no capability to mobilize popular support for its preferred policies.
Read the article. I can definitely see that happening and agree with the author’s ideas at the end. I’m based in NYC and the DSA here is quite big and very effective at electoral politics (e.g. AOC and hopefully Tiffany Caban). I don’t think that article proves any law of nature around lefty organizing. I do think that it illustrates a failure mode of left-wing communities (deference to identity concerns could be manipulated by bad actors). I don’t think it’s evidence that socialism is undesirable as a political project, any more so than EA’s tendency to avoid politics makes it undesirable as a social movement.
I’m sure lots of lefties would not like how market-friendly EA tends to be
It’s unclear to me how representative this is of either EA or leftists. Year over year, the EA survey has shown the vast majority of EA to be “left-of-centre”, which includes a significant portion of the community whose politics might very well be described as ‘far-left’. So while some leftists might be willing to surmise from one EA-aligned organization, or a subset of the community, being market-friendly as representative of how market-friendly all of EA is, that’s an unsound inference. Additionally, even for leftist movements in the U.S. to the left of the Democratic establishment, there is enough ideological diversity I would say many of them appreciate markets enough such that they’re not ‘unfriendly’ to them. Of course there are leftists who aren’t friendly to markets, but I’m aware of a phenomenon of some factions on the Left to claim to speak on behalf of the whole Left, when there is no reason in the vast majority of these cases to think it’s a sound conclusion to draw that the bulk of the Left is hostile to markets. So, while ‘a lot’ of leftists may be hostile to markets, and ‘a lot’ of EA may be market-friendly, without being substantiated with more empirical evidence and logical qualification, those claims don’t provide useful info we can meaningfully work with.
Current Affairs overall is fairly amenable to EA and has a large platform within the left. I don’t think “they are a political movement that seeks attention and power” is a fair or complete characterization of the left. The people I know on the left genuinely believe that their preferred policies will improve people’s lives (e.g. single payer, increase minimum wage, more worker coops, etc.).
I think you’re misinterpreting. I never said that was a complete characterization, and fairness has nothing to do with it. Leftist movements are political movements, and I would say they’re seeking attention and power like any and every other political movement. I’m on the Left as well, and that I and the people who are leftists genuinely believe our preferred policies will indeed improve people’s lives doesn’t change the fact the acquisition of political power to achieve those goals, and acquiring the requisite public attention to achieve that political power, is necessary to achieve those goals. To publicly acknowledge this can be fraught because such language can be easily, often through motivation, interpreted by leftists or their sympathizers as speaking of a political movement covetous of power for its own sake. If one is too sheepish to explain otherwise, and stand up for one’s convictions, it’s a problem. Yet it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve read articles written by no less than Current Affairs’ editor-in-chief Nathan Robinson that to talk about power is something all leftists need to do more of.
It’s kind of funny to me that post on the DSA you’ve just linked is written by the same author of the Current Affairs article I linked on your post about socialism and EA the other day that you ripped apart.
Well I don’t play character assassination games, I’ve got no vendetta against the guy. Knowing about economics and observing the health of social movements are orthogonal. Would I trust Daron Acemoglu’s opinion of the internal workings of the DSA? Of course not.
This is sort of an off the cuff ramble of an answer for a topic which deserves more careful thinking, so I might make some hand-wavy statements and grand sweeping claims which I will not endorse later, but:
First off, I feel that it’s a little unhelpful to frame the question this way. It implicitly forces answers to conflate some fairly separate concepts together 1) The System 2) leftists 3) critiques of EA.
Here’s a similarly sort of unhelpful way to ask a question:
How would you answer?
Most effective altruists support veganism! The central insight motivating most vegan practices is similar to the central insight of EA. Don’t lose sight of that just because some branches of effective altruists think AI risk rather than veganism is a best possible way to go about doing good, and cite cognitive biases as the reason why people might not realize that AI risk is the top priority.
Cognitive Biases are a highly useful but fully generalizable concept that can be used to support or critique literally anything. You should seek to understand cognitive biases them in their own right...not only in the light of how someone has used them to form a “critique of veganism” by advocating for AI risk instead.
That’s how you’d answer, right? So, in answer to your question:
Most ideologically consistent leftists support EA, or would begin supporting it once they learn what it is. Utilitarianism / widening of the moral circle is very similar to ordinary lefty egalitarianism. Don’t lose sight of that just because some branches of the left don’t think some particular EA method are the best possible way to save the world, and cite Failure to Challenge the System as the reason.
The System is a highly useful but fully generalizable concept that can be used to support or critique literally anything. You should seek to understand it in its own right...not only in the light of how someone might invoke it to form a “critique of (non-systemic) effective altruism” by advocating for systemic change instead
I hope this analogy made my point—this question implicitly exaggerates a very minor conflict, setting up an oppositional framework which does not really need to exist.
...okay, so to actually attempt to answer the quesiton rather than subvert it. Please note that the following are not my own views, but a fairly off the cuff representation of my understanding of a set of views that other people hold. Some of these are “oversimplified” versions of views that I do roughly hold, while others are views that I think are false or misguided.
What is the system?: Here’s one oversimplified version of the story: from the lower to upper paleolithic, egalitarian hunter gatherers gradually depleted the natural ecology. Prior to the depletion, generally most able bodied persons could easily provide for themselves and several dependents via foraging. Therefore, it was difficult for anyone to coerce anyone else, no concepts of private property were developed, and people weren’t too fussy about who was related to whom.
In the neolithic, the ecology was generally getting depleted and resources were getting scarce. Hard work and farming became increasingly necessary to survive and people had incentive to violently hoard land, hoard resources, and control the labor of others. “The System” is the power structures that emerged thereby. It includes concepts of private property, slavery, marriage (which was generally a form of slavery), social control of reproduction, social control of sex, caste, class, racism, etc—all mechanisms ultimately meant to justify the power held by the powerful. Much like cognitive biases, these ideas are deeply built into the way all of us think, and distort our judgement. (E.g. do you believe “stealing” is wrong? Some might argue that this is the cultural programming of The System talking. Without conceptions of property, there can be no notion of stealing)
Despite resource scarcity declining due to tech advance, the bulk of human societies are still operating off those neolithic power hierarchies, and the attending harmful structures and concepts are still in place. “Changing the system” often implies steps to re-equalizing the distribution of power and resources, or otherwise dismantling the structures that keep power in the hands of the powerful.
By insisting that the circle of moral concern includes all of humanity (at least), and actively engaging in a process which redistributes resources to the global poor, effective altruists would generally be considered as a source of positive contributing to the dismantling of “The System”. I do think the average leftist would think Effective Altruism, properly pitched, is generally a good idea—As would the average person regardless of ideology, realistically, if you stuck to the basic premises and didn’t get too into some of the more unusual conclusions that they sometimes are taken to.
So how come some common left critiques of EAs invoke “The System”?:
Again, I don’t (entirely) agree with all these views, I’m explaining them.
1) Back when the public perception of EA was that it was about “earning to give” and “donating”...especially when it seemed like “earning to give” meant directing your talent to extractive corporate institutions, the critique was that donations do not actually alter the system of power. Consider that a feudal lord may “give” alms to the serf out of noblesse oblige, but the fundamentally extractive relationship between the lord and serf remains unchanged. I put “give” in quotes because, if you really want to understand The System, you have to stop implicitly thinking of the “lord’s” “ownership” of the things they “nobly” “give” to the “serf” as in any way legitimate in the first place. The lord and serf may both conceptualize this exchange as the lord showing kindness towards the serf, but the reality is that the lord, or his ancestors, actually create and perpetuate the situation in the first place. Imagine the circularity of the lord calculating he had made a magnanimous “impact” by giving the serf a bit of the gold… that was won by trading the grain which the serf had toiled for in the first place. Earning to give is a little reminiscent of this...particularly in fields like finance, where you’re essentially working for the “lord” in this analogy.
2) Corporate environments maximize profit. Effective altruists maximize impact. As both these things are ultimately geared towards maximizing something that ultimately boils down to a number, effective altruist language often sounds an awful lot like corporate language, and people who “succeed” in effective altruism look and sound an awful lot like people who “succeed” in corporate environments. This breeds a sense of distrust. There’s a long history within leftism of groups of people “selling out”—claiming to try to change the system from inside, but then turning their backs on the powerless once they got power. To some degree, this similarity may create distasteful perceptions of a person’s “value” within effective altruism that is analogous to the distasteful perception of a person’s “value” in a capitalist society. (E.g. capitalist society treats people who are good at earning money as sort of morally superior. Changing “earning money” to “causing impact” can cause similarly wrong thinking)
3) EAs to some extent come off as viewing the global poor as “people to help” rather than “people to empower”. The effective altruist themself is viewed as the hero and agent of change, not the people they are helping. There is not that much discussion of the people we are helping as agents of change who might play an important part in their own liberation. (This last one happens to be a critique I personally agree with fairly wholeheartedly, and plan to write more on later)
I would strongly recommend not creating a false dichotomy between “EA” and “Leftists”, and setting up these things as somehow opposed or at odds. I’m approximately an EA. I’m approximately a leftist. While there are leftist-style critiques of EA, and EA-style critiques of leftism, I wouldn’t say that there’s any particular tension between these frameworks.
There is really no need to draw lines and label things according to ideology in that manner. I think the most productive reply to a “X-ist” critique of EA is an X-ist support of EA, or better yet, a re-purposing of EA to fulfill X-ist values. (Yes, there are some value systems for which this cannot work...but the egalitarian left is definitely not among those value systems)
Yes.
And to that I would add, don’t needlessly frame EA as fundamentally in opposition to anyone’s values. EA can be framework for figuring out strategic ways to fulfill your values regardless of what those values are. (Up to a point—but again, “leftists” are well within the pale of that point.)
Well, I think this is an unhelpful tone. It is, again, setting up EA as something different and better than leftism, rather than a way for us to fulfill our values—even if our values aren’t all exactly the same as each others. This isn’t particular to leftism. If you wanted the members of a church congregation to donate to Givewell, you should focus on shared values of charity, not “EAs could save more souls than Christianity ever could”. The goal for EA is not to engage against other ideologies, the goal (to the extent that EA ideas are good and true, which obviously they may not all be) is to become part of the fabric of common sense by which other ideologies operate and try to perpetuate their goals.
Beyond the tone it’s also just not true, in my opinion. Seems to me that social change does in fact occur constantly due to political movements, all the time. What’s more, I’m pretty sure that the widespread acceptance of the basic building block concepts of effective altruism (such as, all people are equally important) are largely due to these leftist social movements. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that EA itself is at least in part among the products of these social movements.
I think you’re underestimating the level of hostility most socialists and communists have towards philanthropy and EA in particular. In my experience (online only) EAs receive consistent, active and preemptive hostility from leftist groups, including vicious attacks on personality and character rather than mere disagreement about ends and means. It’s naive to think that small questions of framing would shift this relationship.
Of course it’s important to frame things in such a way that a sizeable minority of leftists go along with us, but that’s always going to be in opposition to concerted hostility from powerful people within the leftist ecosystem. And really this is more a matter of public-facing communication rather than stuff on this forum.
It’s a perfectly valid goal. If other ideologies are wrong (or, to put it in subjective terms, if they contradict our own values) then we ought to defeat them—if that is in fact possible and the most effective strategy in pragmatic terms. There’s nothing special about other people’s ideologies that renders them immune to criticism and change like anything else.
It might be useful to promote this to other people in some cases, but as a concept of EA this view is philosophically untenable. See: https://philpapers.org/rec/BEREAH-3
Strongly upvoted. Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.
At least one leftist critique of EA has made the case while leftist political movements and EA can find common ground in the ideals shared between egalitarianism and utilitarianism, through an egalitarian lens, the framing of altruism should be seen by all leftists as problematic. From “5 Problems with Effective Altruism”, by Connor Woodman, published in Novara Media in June 2016:
I’m aware of this. Some leftist critics of EA come from an essentially Marxist perspective (i.e., “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”) While not all contemporary Marxists, some leftists take this to a logical conclusion known as class reductionism: the idea other apparent kinds of oppression like racism and sexism are absolutely functions of classism, and so this is the only kind of anti-oppression politics leftists need or should prioritize (in spite of Urban Dictionary’s contention, I’m aware this is a position in fact advanced by some people, although it’s true the accusation as often levelled is unsound). Obviously, there are disagreements over class reductionism within leftism that have nothing to do with EA.
It’s ambiguous whether EA’s leftist critics are primarily talking about ‘systemic change’ in terms of economic class, or through an intersectional lens, and see race, sex, sexuality, or other dimensions of oppression to be just as important as economics in what in EA’s approaches should change. So, my original question could have been formulated as: to what extent is leftist criticism of EA class reductionist, or intersectionalist?
This is a major source of implicit distrust some leftists would have upon being introduced to EA that has been just below the surface of my thinking on this subject, but I’ve never seen anyone in EA articulate this point so well.
This is essentially the criticism of EA I quoted above from the Novara Media article. You’re right this is a criticism of EA that isn’t inherently leftist, but it is one leftists tend to make most often. It’s one I agree with. I look forward to your writing on it. Please feel free to reach out to me for help in writing it, or for proofreading, editing, or feedback on the draft.
I’m aware of this, especially because criticisms of EA by leftists outside EA are confounded by the fact most of the EA community already is leftist, and critics often lack awareness of this. I was just utilizing this frame because it’s one the debate has historically been situated in by how leftist critics of EA have imposed this dichotomy on the conversation between themselves, and the EA community.
I should have been more specific above. If I didn’t think the was room for cooperation or collaboration between EA and any leftist political movements, I would have said ‘most’ or ‘all’ of them are ineffective, or countereffective, by the lights of overlapping principles of both EA and leftist politics. However, while it may not be most, there are at least some leftist factions I do think EA is qualified in asserting we are better than at providing people with opportunities to pursue their own autonomy and liberation. EA should be, and thus rightly is, open to an earnest and ongoing dialogue with leftist political movements, even some of the most radical among them. Nobody has to take it from me. No less than William MacAskill has said in a closing address at EAG that EA should be open-minded to diverse intellectual, political, and ideological perspectives, and thus should not assume something like Marxism is wrong on principle, in response to what he presumably saw as an insufficient degree of open-mindedness in the very movement he co-founded. Yet EA can’t take that to a conclusion of undermining its own principles.
All variety of leftist ideologies from history are on the upswing today, as politics becomes more polarized, and more people are shifting leftward (and, of course, rightward as well) away from the centre. This has impelled some radical anti-capitalists to spread in the last few years as a propaganda the meme “liberals get the bullet too”. If this was inspired by they ideology of, say, Leninism, then while even if EA shouldn’t moralize in asserting ourselves as “better”, this would be sufficient grounds for EA to deny a positive association with them, even if the line is meant only rhetorically or symbolically. This would be justified even if we would at the same time build bridges to other leftist movements that have shown themselves more conducive to cooperation with EA, such as those Marxists who would be willing to seek common ground with EA. Of course, as there are many ideologies on the Left, including whole families of ideologies totally incompatible with EA, I believe we must be clear about this. Like you yourself said, this isn’t unique to leftists. With regards to the Right, EA could build bridges to conservatism, while nonetheless totally rejecting a notion we might ally ourselves with the family of rightist ideologies we could call “supremacism”.
To reframe my last point in the context of your words, if EA is to become part of humanity’s fabric of moral common sense, we must recognize there are ideologies that don’t operate under that fabric in the perpetuation of their goals, and go against the grain of both EA and the fabric of common sense. For EA to be worth anything, we must on principle be willing to engage against those ideologies. Of course, EA can and should be willing to ally itself with those leftists who’d seek to expand the circle of moral concern against those who would seek to shrink it to get ahead, no matter what their original ideals were.
This is with regards to political ideologies where either the disagreement over fundamental values, or at least basic facts that inform our moral judgements, are irreconcilable. Yet there will also be political movements with which EA can reconcile, as we would share the same fundamental values, but EA will nonetheless be responsible to criticize or challenge, on the grounds those movements are, in practice, using means or pursuing ends that put them in opposition to those of EA. Current Affairs is a socialist/radical leftist magazine that I believe represents the kinds of leftist movements with which EA can find common ground. Yet when I was seeking the same kind of conciliation you’re seeking in this thread, in another discussion of socialism and effective altruism, kbog impressed upon me the importance of EA’s willingness to push back against those policy prescriptions that would fail to increase well-being as much as could be done simply because of a failure of effectiveness, if not altruistic intent. This conclusion is an unfortunate one even to me, as like myself I believe most of EA wouldn’t want to have engage others in this way, but it may be necessary. I believe our willingness to live up to that responsibility is one of the few things that distinguishes EA at all from any other community predicated on doing good.
Agreed.
I’m going to critique Connor’s article, and in doing so attempt to “lead by example” in showing how I think critiques of this type are best engaged.
There’s two problems with Connor’s article, and they both have to do with this sentence.
The less important problem: Who is the “our” in the phrase “our own land”? We’re on the internet, yet Connor just assumes the reader’s allegiances, identity, location, etc. Why is everyone who is not in some particular land implicitly excluded from the conversation? Why is “us” not everyone and “our land” not the Earth?
EA is just as guilty of this, for example when people talk about dollars going farther “overseas”. This is the internet, donors and academics and direct workers and so on live in every country, so where is “local” and where is “overseas”, exactly? For all EA’s globalist ambitious, there is this assumption that people who are actually in a low-middle income country aren’t a part of the conversation. (I agree with everything the “dollar overseas” article actually says, just to be clear. The problem is what the phrasing means about the assumptions of the writers.)
It’s bad when Connor does it and it’s bad when effective altruists do it. Yes, we are writing for a specific audience, but that audience is anyone who takes the time to understand EA ideas and can speak the language written. This is part of what I’m talking about when I say that EA makes some very harmful assumptions about who exactly the agents of change are going to be and the scope of who “effective altruists” potentially are. This problem is not limited to EAs, it is widespread.
The problem isn’t the phrasing, of course, it’s what the phrasing indicates about the writer.
The more important problem, and on this forum, this one is preaching to the choir of course, is 2) You can’t just assume that your solidarity group is the most effective way to do things. Someone still has to do an impact evaluation on your social movement and the flow of talent and resources through that movement, including the particular activities of any particular organization enacting that movement.
Thus far, Effective Altruists are at the forefront of actually attempting to do this in a transparent way for altruistic organizations. The expansion to policy change is still in its infancy, but …I would not be surprised if impact evaluations of attempting political movements and policy changes begin surfacing at some point.
Nor can you just assume that the best way to do things is local and that people should for some mysterious reason focus on things “in their own lands”. Yes, it may in fact be beneficial to be local at times, but...you have to actually check, you have to have some reasonable account of why this is the most effective thing for you to do.
Once you agree on certain very basic premises (that all humans are roughly equally important moral subjects, that the results of your actions are important, etc) I think all effective altruism really asks is that you attempt process of actually estimating the effect of your use of resources and talent in a rigorous way. This applies regardless of whether your method is philanthropy or collective action.
(What would Connor say if they read my comment? I suspect they would at the very least admit that it was not ideal to implicitly assume their audience like that. But I’d like to think any shrewd supporter of collective action would eventually ask...”Well okay, how do I actually do an impact evaluation of my collective action related plans?” And the result would hopefully be more rigorous and effective collective action, which is more likely to actually accomplish what it was intended to accomplish. I think it’s important that the response deconstructed the false dichotomy between “collective action” and “effective altruism”. The critic should begin asking: “okay, disagreements aside, what might these effective altruist frameworks for evaluating impact do for me?” and “If I think that this other thing is more effective, how can I quantitatively prove it?”)
I think the “less important problem” is related to the “more important problem”. For Connor, even if we grant that collective action is the best thing, the implicitly western “us” limits his vision as to what forms collective action could take, and which social movements people like himself might direct money, talent, or other resources towards. (For EAs, I would speculate that the implicit “us” limits our vision in different, more complicated ways, having to do with under-valuing certain forms of human capital in accomplishing EA goals—Just as Connor just assumes local is better, I think EAs sometimes just assume certain things that EAs tend to assume about exactly who is well placed to make effective impact (and therefore, who needs EA oriented advice, resources, education, training, etc). it’s a subject I’m still thinking about, and it’s the one I hope to write about later.
Come on, the assumption of the writers is “people looking to us for philanthropy advice are predominantly living in the First World,” and that assumption is correct. (And it’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy, either).
OK, then how do you know that it doesn’t merely indicate that the writer is good at writing and marketing?
More evaluations and analyses are always nice (and some EA orgs have done that kind of thing, I believe). But their value can be dubious and it may just be a fruitless meta trap. You may think that an EA organization is under-allocating time and money for meta evaluations, but other people are going to disagree, and the reasons for such disagreement need to be properly addressed before this kind of thing can be used as a general criticism.
No one has a monopoly on critiquing people merely for having unexamined assumptions. If you start it, it turns into a game of whataboutism and petty status-seeking where no actually useful progress is made to help with important efforts in the real world. Drop the methodology wars and focus on making actual progress.
I think that’s a little unfair. It wasn’t just have an “unexamined assumption”, he just declared that solidarity was the best way and named some organizations he liked, with no attempt at estimating and quantifying. And he’s critiquing EA, an ideology whose claim to fame is impact evaluations. Can an EA saying “okay that’s great, I agree that could be true… but how about having a quantitative impact evaluation… of any kind, at all, just to help cement the case” really be characterized as “whataboutism” / methodology war?
(I don’t think I agree with your first paragraph, but I do think it’s fair to argue that “but not all readers are in high income countries” is whataboutism until I more fully expand on what I think the practical implications are on impact evaluation. I’m going to save the discussion about the practical problems that arise from being first world centric for a different post, or drop them, depending on how my opinion changes after I’ve put more thought into it.)
I wish I could even more strongly upvote this. I think the tension between EA and leftism is largely a product of mutual misunderstanding. In general, I think there is more overlap and room for cooperation than disagreement (particularly on things like open borders, decarceration, wealth redistribution/addressing inequality). I would encourage EAs to check out a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting in their hometown. Even if you strongly disagree with leftism/socialism, you’ll see a very different method of organizing people committed to helping others, which I have found an educational contrast with how we do things at EA NYC. DSA is great at involving lots of members in impactful local campaigns (supporting policies like universal rent control or medicare for all, organizing tenants, or supporting electoral candidates).
For the people who think that the left is disorganized and ineffective, I would encourage you to read more about the DSA’s electoral successes in the past few years (good overview of the DSA here: https://newrepublic.com/article/153768/inside-democratic-socialists-america-struggle-political-mainstream and a shorter piece by Nathan Robinson https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/why-i-love-the-d-s-a). Congresswomen AOC and Rashida Tlaib were DSA members and probably would not have won without the DSA’s grassroots support. Tiffany Caban is a DSA-backed public defender who has a real shot at becoming the next Queens District Attorney, an extraordinarily powerful position. Queens has over 2M people and the DA can unilaterally decide a lot of criminal justice policy in their jurisdiction. If Bernie wins the primary and general, DSA will have played a large role in turning out grassroots volunteers.
I’m not advocating that EA actively engage in political campaigns or radically change the way its local groups are structured. I just think that EAs who are interested in policy change go to some DSA events, because I think the DSA understands how political change happens far better than almost everyone I know in EA. Even if you think their priorities are dead wrong, they have been massively successful on an annual budget of less than $1m (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133109557).
Yet persistent attempts to explain EA have accomplished, as far as I can tell, nothing in the way of improving leftist attitudes towards EA.
The reason there is tension is that the socialist movement gains status and notability when they condemn the things that are associated with capitalism in the public conscience. It’s really that simple. They are not dispassionate philosophers trying to understand things, they are a political movement that seeks attention and power. And they can gain much more attention and power if they position themselves as loud critics of EA than if they attempt a long quiet slog through the mud of rigorous cause prioritization. Of course EA seeks attention and power too, but with a very different set of constraints and incentives.
Re: the DSA. Have you seen this story?
Eh, I’ve explained EA to a lot of lefties I meet and almost all of them have never heard of it, but are on board with the basics. However, my interpretation of and description of EA is pretty consistent with my lefty principles (both are extensions of radical egalitarian principles to me), and I’m sure lots of lefties would not like how market-friendly EA tends to be. I say some version of: EA is a social movement of people trying to do as much good as possible, using evidence to inform their perspective. This generally leads to people giving money to highly effective charities, giving up animal products, and prioritizing the long-term future.
Current Affairs overall is fairly amenable to EA and has a large platform within the left. I don’t think “they are a political movement that seeks attention and power” is a fair or complete characterization of the left. The people I know on the left genuinely believe that their preferred policies will improve people’s lives (e.g. single payer, increase minimum wage, more worker coops, etc.). You may disagree with their prescriptions, although based on the pro-market sources you tend to cite on these topics, you may not be interrogating your own biases enough. But if you believe what the typical DSA member does (that we know what the right policies are to address inequality and healthcare, and the only thing standing in the way of making them happen are entrenched wealthy interests), then their strategy of mobilizing large numbers of people to organize and canvass for these issues is a smart one. The EA approach to policy will only help affect things on the margin or in very technocratic roles, IMO. These things are important too, but EA has demonstrated no capability to mobilize popular support for its preferred policies.
Read the article. I can definitely see that happening and agree with the author’s ideas at the end. I’m based in NYC and the DSA here is quite big and very effective at electoral politics (e.g. AOC and hopefully Tiffany Caban). I don’t think that article proves any law of nature around lefty organizing. I do think that it illustrates a failure mode of left-wing communities (deference to identity concerns could be manipulated by bad actors). I don’t think it’s evidence that socialism is undesirable as a political project, any more so than EA’s tendency to avoid politics makes it undesirable as a social movement.
It’s unclear to me how representative this is of either EA or leftists. Year over year, the EA survey has shown the vast majority of EA to be “left-of-centre”, which includes a significant portion of the community whose politics might very well be described as ‘far-left’. So while some leftists might be willing to surmise from one EA-aligned organization, or a subset of the community, being market-friendly as representative of how market-friendly all of EA is, that’s an unsound inference. Additionally, even for leftist movements in the U.S. to the left of the Democratic establishment, there is enough ideological diversity I would say many of them appreciate markets enough such that they’re not ‘unfriendly’ to them. Of course there are leftists who aren’t friendly to markets, but I’m aware of a phenomenon of some factions on the Left to claim to speak on behalf of the whole Left, when there is no reason in the vast majority of these cases to think it’s a sound conclusion to draw that the bulk of the Left is hostile to markets. So, while ‘a lot’ of leftists may be hostile to markets, and ‘a lot’ of EA may be market-friendly, without being substantiated with more empirical evidence and logical qualification, those claims don’t provide useful info we can meaningfully work with.
I think you’re misinterpreting. I never said that was a complete characterization, and fairness has nothing to do with it. Leftist movements are political movements, and I would say they’re seeking attention and power like any and every other political movement. I’m on the Left as well, and that I and the people who are leftists genuinely believe our preferred policies will indeed improve people’s lives doesn’t change the fact the acquisition of political power to achieve those goals, and acquiring the requisite public attention to achieve that political power, is necessary to achieve those goals. To publicly acknowledge this can be fraught because such language can be easily, often through motivation, interpreted by leftists or their sympathizers as speaking of a political movement covetous of power for its own sake. If one is too sheepish to explain otherwise, and stand up for one’s convictions, it’s a problem. Yet it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve read articles written by no less than Current Affairs’ editor-in-chief Nathan Robinson that to talk about power is something all leftists need to do more of.
It’s kind of funny to me that post on the DSA you’ve just linked is written by the same author of the Current Affairs article I linked on your post about socialism and EA the other day that you ripped apart.
Well I don’t play character assassination games, I’ve got no vendetta against the guy. Knowing about economics and observing the health of social movements are orthogonal. Would I trust Daron Acemoglu’s opinion of the internal workings of the DSA? Of course not.
Yeah, I just meant it’s a funny coincidence. I don’t think there is any issue citing him here.
Yeah, I didn’t notice it, I was under the impression that 99% of Current Affairs was written by Nate.