It’s not mentioned but there are no democratic elements in EA
I think you mean something like “CEA’s strategy should be determined by the vote of (some set of people)”, which is a fine position to have, but there are clearly democratic elements in EA (democratically run organizations like EA Norway, individuals choosing to donate their money without deference to a coordinating body, etc.).
This is a tangent, but I thought I’d say a bit more about how we’ve done things at EA Norway, as some people might not know. This is not meant as an argument in any direction.
Every year, we have a general assembly for members of EA Norway. To be a member, you need to have paid the yearly membership fee (either to EA Norway or one of the approved student groups). The total income from the membership fee covers roughly the costs of organising the general assembly. The importance of the membership fee is mainly that it’s a bar of entry to the organisation, makes it clear if you’re a member or not, and it’s nice and symbolic that the fees can cover the general assembly. However, I think the crucial thing about how we’re organised at EA Norway isn’t that members pay a fee, but that the general assembly is the supreme body of the organisation.
During the general assembly, the attending members vote on an election committee, board members, and community representatives. During the general assembly, the members can also bring forward and vote on changes to the statutes and resolutions. Resolutions are basically requests members have for the board, that they’re asking the board to look into or comment on until the next general assembly. The general assembly also need to approve an annual report of activities and a financial report.
The election committee is responsible for finding candidates for the different positions, and nominate candidates to the board ahead of the next general assembly.
The board is responsible for setting a strategy for the organisation and assessing the Executive Director. Historically, the board has set 3-year strategies for the org, including objectives and metrics for those objectives. The Executive Director is tasked with carrying out that strategy and need to regularly report on the progress of the metrics to the board. Redacted meeting minutes from each board meeting are made available to the members in an online community folder.
Community representatives are available to members who want to raise small or big issues that they feel like they can’t raise elsewhere. They can’t have any other position at the organisation. Per the statutes, the community representatives are to be involved as early as possible in any internal conflict, breach of statutes or ethical guidelines, and other matters that might be harmful for the members or EA Norway.
Hi Ben. It’s a pity you didn’t comment on the substance of my post, just proposed a minor correction. I hope you’ll be able to comment later.
You point out EA Norway, which I was aware of, but I think it’s the only one and decided not to mention it (I’ve even been to the annual conference and apologise to the Norwegians—credit where credit’s due). But that seems to be the exception that proves the rule. Why are there no others? I’ve heard on the grapevine that CEA discourages it which seems, well, sinister. Seems a weird coincidence are nearly no democratic EA societies.
You say
“There are clearly democratic elements in EA [… E.g.] individuals choosing to donate their money without deference to a coordinating body”
I think you’ve misunderstood the meaning of democracy here. I think you’re just talking about not being a totalitarian state, where the state can control all your activities. I believe that in, say, Saudi Arabia (not a democracy) you can mostly spend your money on what you want, including your choice of charity, without deference to a coordination body.
It’s a pity you didn’t comment on the substance of my post, just proposed a minor correction
Thanks for the nudge! Yeah I should have said that I agree with a lot of your comment. There are a few statements that are (IMO) hyperbolic, but if your comment was more moderate I suspect I would agree quite a lot.
I disagree though that this is a “minor correction” – people making (what the criticized person perceives as) uncharitable criticisms on the Forum seems like one of the major reasons why people don’t want to engage here, and I would like there to be less of that.
You point out EA Norway, which I was aware of, but I think it’s the only one and decided not to mention it (I’ve even been to the annual conference and apologise to the Norwegians—credit where credit’s due). But that seems to be the exception that proves the rule. Why are there no others? I’ve heard on the grapevine that CEA discourages it which seems, well, sinister.
I think Efektivni Altruismus is similar (e.g. their bylaws state that members vote in the general assembly), and it has similarly been supported by a grant from CEA.
I’m glad someone mentioned national membership associations! I haven’t done a formal tally but I think Germany and Switzerland are also membership associations. I quite like the idea for EA Netherlands (I’m the co-director but here I’m speaking in a personal capacity).
If we had more national membership associations we could together set up a supranational organisation to replace much of CEA. Like other membership associations, this would have a general assembly, a board, committees, and an executive office. It’d be different from Michael’s suggestion in that the fee-paying would be done by the national orgs. I.e., the members would be EA Switzerland, EA Netherlands, etc., and they would send delegates to the General Assembly.
This organisation could then provide relevant public goods, e.g., international networking via the EAG event series and the EA Forum, community-building training via the CBG programme, or anything else its members might consider valuable (e.g., advocacy work). Off the top of my head, an analogous organisation might be the Dutch Association of Municipalities (VNG). You can read about how the VNG is governed here and what they do here.
This could also help diversify funding in community building. Right now, most national EA organisations get nearly all of their money from CEA, and CEA gets nearly all of its money from OP’s Effective Altruism Community Growth (Longtermism) programme. Naturally, this means national organisations are incentivised to engage in more longtermist community building than they are in GHD or animal welfare community building, and we don’t know if this is what the EA community wants.[1]
From what I understand, most national EA membership associations don’t raise much from their membership fees, but perhaps this could change. For example, the other weekend I visited the Lit and Phil in Newcastle. They’ve been going for over 200 years. Members pay GBP 150 per year and they have over 1000. That kind of setup would go a long way in funding an org such as EA Netherlands.
Of course, whether this should be a decision that’s made by the EA community democratically, or by some other body such as the coordination forum, is something we haven’t decided.
I think one large disadvantage of a membership association is that it will usually consist of the most interested people, or the people most interested in the social aspect of EA. This may not always correlate with the people who could have the most impact, and creates a definitive in and out.
I’d be worried about members voting for activities that benefit them the most rather than the ultimate beneficiaries (global poor, animals, future beings).
First, about the risk of a membership association selecting for the people most interested in EA, the same holds for the current governance structure (but even more so). However, I don’t think this is such a terrible thing. It can be an issue when you’re a political party and you have a membership that wildly diverges from the electorate, thus hampering their ability to select policies/leaders that appeal to the electorate. But we aren’t a political party.
Second, about the risk of a membership association selecting for those who are mostly interested in the social aspect of EA, I don’t think this is necessarily the case. Do you think people join Greenpeace for the social side of things? You’d have to pay to become a member, and it would come with duties that, for most people, aren’t very exciting (voting, following the money, etc). I’d be more worried about it selecting for people with political inclinations. But even then, it isn’t a given that this would be a bad thing.
Lastly, your worry that members would vote for activities that benefit them the most, this is perhaps the main reason I think we ought to consider a more democratic movement. After all, the same risk holds for the current governance structure (to err is human). A big benefit of a membership association is that you have mechanisms to correct this; a core duty of membership would be holding the leaders to account.
In my opinion, the biggest issue with making the movement more democratic is that it could make things complicated and slow. This might make us less effective for a while. But, it might still be better in the long run.
EA isn’t a political party but I still think it’s an issue if the aims of the keenest members diverges from the original aims of the movement, especially if the barrier to entry to be a member is quite low compared to being in an EA governance position. I would worry that the people who would bother to vote would have much less understanding of what the strategic situation is than the people who are working full time.
Maybe we have had different experiences, I would say that the people who turn up to more events are usually more interested in the social side of EA. Also there are lot of people in the UK who want to have impact and have a high interest in EA but don’t come to events and wouldn’t want to pay to be a member (or even sign up as a member if it was free).
I think people can still hold organisations to account and follow the money, even if they aren’t members, and this already happens in EA, with lots of critiques of different organisations and individuals.
For better and/or for worse, the membership organization’s ability to get stuff done would be heavily constrained by donor receptivity. Taking EA Norway as an example, eirine’s comments tell us that (at least as of ~2018-2021), “[t]he total income from the membership fee covers roughly the costs of organising the general assembly,” that “board made sure to fundraise enough from private donors for” the ED’s salary, but that most “funding came from a community building grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)” (which, as I understand it, means Open Phil was the primary ultimate donor).
To me, that both constrains both how thoroughly democratic a membership association would be and how far afield from best practices a democratic membership association could go.
Re divergence, there will always be people who want to move the movement in a different direction. More democracy just means more transparency, more reasoning in a social context,[1] more people to persuade, and a more informed membership. Hopefully, this stops bad divergence but still allows good pivots.
The downside is that everything takes longer. Honestly, this is perhaps my biggest worry about making things more democratic: it slows everything down. So, for example, the pivot from GHD to longtermism in EA’s second wave would probably have taken much longer (or might not have occurred at all). If longtermism is true, and if it was right for EA to make that pivot, then slowing that pivot down would have been a disaster.
I don’t think I understand why you think having a voting membership would mean more social events. Could you explain it to me? I think it would make the movement more responsive to what the community thinks is best for EA, and I think there’s a case to be made that thousands of brains are better than dozens. This might mean more social events, but it might mean fewer. Let’s have the community figure it out through democracy.[2]
Yes, people can definitely hold people to account without being members, but they have far less ‘teeth’. They can say what they think on the forum, but that’s very different from being able to elect the board members, or pass judgements as part of a general assembly.
I think you’ve misunderstood the meaning of democracy here. I think you’re just talking about not being a totalitarian state, where the state can control all your activities.
I mean, there is no state, so I guess I just don’t understand analogy you’re drawing. If EA had democratic control of funding, you wouldn’t describe that as a “democratic element”?
But it sounds like we agree there is at least one democratic element, which is all that is needed to disprove the original claim, so probably no need to pursue this thread anymore. Thanks for the response!
I think you mean something like “CEA’s strategy should be determined by the vote of (some set of people)”, which is a fine position to have, but there are clearly democratic elements in EA (democratically run organizations like EA Norway, individuals choosing to donate their money without deference to a coordinating body, etc.).
This is a tangent, but I thought I’d say a bit more about how we’ve done things at EA Norway, as some people might not know. This is not meant as an argument in any direction.
Every year, we have a general assembly for members of EA Norway. To be a member, you need to have paid the yearly membership fee (either to EA Norway or one of the approved student groups). The total income from the membership fee covers roughly the costs of organising the general assembly. The importance of the membership fee is mainly that it’s a bar of entry to the organisation, makes it clear if you’re a member or not, and it’s nice and symbolic that the fees can cover the general assembly. However, I think the crucial thing about how we’re organised at EA Norway isn’t that members pay a fee, but that the general assembly is the supreme body of the organisation.
During the general assembly, the attending members vote on an election committee, board members, and community representatives. During the general assembly, the members can also bring forward and vote on changes to the statutes and resolutions. Resolutions are basically requests members have for the board, that they’re asking the board to look into or comment on until the next general assembly. The general assembly also need to approve an annual report of activities and a financial report.
The election committee is responsible for finding candidates for the different positions, and nominate candidates to the board ahead of the next general assembly.
The board is responsible for setting a strategy for the organisation and assessing the Executive Director. Historically, the board has set 3-year strategies for the org, including objectives and metrics for those objectives. The Executive Director is tasked with carrying out that strategy and need to regularly report on the progress of the metrics to the board. Redacted meeting minutes from each board meeting are made available to the members in an online community folder.
Community representatives are available to members who want to raise small or big issues that they feel like they can’t raise elsewhere. They can’t have any other position at the organisation. Per the statutes, the community representatives are to be involved as early as possible in any internal conflict, breach of statutes or ethical guidelines, and other matters that might be harmful for the members or EA Norway.
Hi Ben. It’s a pity you didn’t comment on the substance of my post, just proposed a minor correction. I hope you’ll be able to comment later.
You point out EA Norway, which I was aware of, but I think it’s the only one and decided not to mention it (I’ve even been to the annual conference and apologise to the Norwegians—credit where credit’s due). But that seems to be the exception that proves the rule. Why are there no others? I’ve heard on the grapevine that CEA discourages it which seems, well, sinister. Seems a weird coincidence are nearly no democratic EA societies.
You say
“There are clearly democratic elements in EA [… E.g.] individuals choosing to donate their money without deference to a coordinating body”
I think you’ve misunderstood the meaning of democracy here. I think you’re just talking about not being a totalitarian state, where the state can control all your activities. I believe that in, say, Saudi Arabia (not a democracy) you can mostly spend your money on what you want, including your choice of charity, without deference to a coordination body.
Thanks for the nudge! Yeah I should have said that I agree with a lot of your comment. There are a few statements that are (IMO) hyperbolic, but if your comment was more moderate I suspect I would agree quite a lot.
I disagree though that this is a “minor correction” – people making (what the criticized person perceives as) uncharitable criticisms on the Forum seems like one of the major reasons why people don’t want to engage here, and I would like there to be less of that.
I think Efektivni Altruismus is similar (e.g. their bylaws state that members vote in the general assembly), and it has similarly been supported by a grant from CEA.
I’m glad someone mentioned national membership associations! I haven’t done a formal tally but I think Germany and Switzerland are also membership associations. I quite like the idea for EA Netherlands (I’m the co-director but here I’m speaking in a personal capacity).
If we had more national membership associations we could together set up a supranational organisation to replace much of CEA. Like other membership associations, this would have a general assembly, a board, committees, and an executive office. It’d be different from Michael’s suggestion in that the fee-paying would be done by the national orgs. I.e., the members would be EA Switzerland, EA Netherlands, etc., and they would send delegates to the General Assembly.
This organisation could then provide relevant public goods, e.g., international networking via the EAG event series and the EA Forum, community-building training via the CBG programme, or anything else its members might consider valuable (e.g., advocacy work). Off the top of my head, an analogous organisation might be the Dutch Association of Municipalities (VNG). You can read about how the VNG is governed here and what they do here.
This could also help diversify funding in community building. Right now, most national EA organisations get nearly all of their money from CEA, and CEA gets nearly all of its money from OP’s Effective Altruism Community Growth (Longtermism) programme. Naturally, this means national organisations are incentivised to engage in more longtermist community building than they are in GHD or animal welfare community building, and we don’t know if this is what the EA community wants.[1]
From what I understand, most national EA membership associations don’t raise much from their membership fees, but perhaps this could change. For example, the other weekend I visited the Lit and Phil in Newcastle. They’ve been going for over 200 years. Members pay GBP 150 per year and they have over 1000. That kind of setup would go a long way in funding an org such as EA Netherlands.
Of course, whether this should be a decision that’s made by the EA community democratically, or by some other body such as the coordination forum, is something we haven’t decided.
I think one large disadvantage of a membership association is that it will usually consist of the most interested people, or the people most interested in the social aspect of EA. This may not always correlate with the people who could have the most impact, and creates a definitive in and out.
I’d be worried about members voting for activities that benefit them the most rather than the ultimate beneficiaries (global poor, animals, future beings).
Yes these are things I worry about too!
First, about the risk of a membership association selecting for the people most interested in EA, the same holds for the current governance structure (but even more so). However, I don’t think this is such a terrible thing. It can be an issue when you’re a political party and you have a membership that wildly diverges from the electorate, thus hampering their ability to select policies/leaders that appeal to the electorate. But we aren’t a political party.
Second, about the risk of a membership association selecting for those who are mostly interested in the social aspect of EA, I don’t think this is necessarily the case. Do you think people join Greenpeace for the social side of things? You’d have to pay to become a member, and it would come with duties that, for most people, aren’t very exciting (voting, following the money, etc). I’d be more worried about it selecting for people with political inclinations. But even then, it isn’t a given that this would be a bad thing.
Lastly, your worry that members would vote for activities that benefit them the most, this is perhaps the main reason I think we ought to consider a more democratic movement. After all, the same risk holds for the current governance structure (to err is human). A big benefit of a membership association is that you have mechanisms to correct this; a core duty of membership would be holding the leaders to account.
In my opinion, the biggest issue with making the movement more democratic is that it could make things complicated and slow. This might make us less effective for a while. But, it might still be better in the long run.
EA isn’t a political party but I still think it’s an issue if the aims of the keenest members diverges from the original aims of the movement, especially if the barrier to entry to be a member is quite low compared to being in an EA governance position. I would worry that the people who would bother to vote would have much less understanding of what the strategic situation is than the people who are working full time.
Maybe we have had different experiences, I would say that the people who turn up to more events are usually more interested in the social side of EA. Also there are lot of people in the UK who want to have impact and have a high interest in EA but don’t come to events and wouldn’t want to pay to be a member (or even sign up as a member if it was free).
I think people can still hold organisations to account and follow the money, even if they aren’t members, and this already happens in EA, with lots of critiques of different organisations and individuals.
For better and/or for worse, the membership organization’s ability to get stuff done would be heavily constrained by donor receptivity. Taking EA Norway as an example, eirine’s comments tell us that (at least as of ~2018-2021), “[t]he total income from the membership fee covers roughly the costs of organising the general assembly,” that “board made sure to fundraise enough from private donors for” the ED’s salary, but that most “funding came from a community building grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)” (which, as I understand it, means Open Phil was the primary ultimate donor).
To me, that both constrains both how thoroughly democratic a membership association would be and how far afield from best practices a democratic membership association could go.
Re divergence, there will always be people who want to move the movement in a different direction. More democracy just means more transparency, more reasoning in a social context,[1] more people to persuade, and a more informed membership. Hopefully, this stops bad divergence but still allows good pivots.
The downside is that everything takes longer. Honestly, this is perhaps my biggest worry about making things more democratic: it slows everything down. So, for example, the pivot from GHD to longtermism in EA’s second wave would probably have taken much longer (or might not have occurred at all). If longtermism is true, and if it was right for EA to make that pivot, then slowing that pivot down would have been a disaster.
I don’t think I understand why you think having a voting membership would mean more social events. Could you explain it to me? I think it would make the movement more responsive to what the community thinks is best for EA, and I think there’s a case to be made that thousands of brains are better than dozens. This might mean more social events, but it might mean fewer. Let’s have the community figure it out through democracy.[2]
Yes, people can definitely hold people to account without being members, but they have far less ‘teeth’. They can say what they think on the forum, but that’s very different from being able to elect the board members, or pass judgements as part of a general assembly.
See Sperber and Mercier’s ‘The Enigma of Reason’ for why this might be a good thing
Personally, I think we should do fewer purely social events, but we should do more things that are both impactful and social.
I mean, there is no state, so I guess I just don’t understand analogy you’re drawing. If EA had democratic control of funding, you wouldn’t describe that as a “democratic element”?
But it sounds like we agree there is at least one democratic element, which is all that is needed to disprove the original claim, so probably no need to pursue this thread anymore. Thanks for the response!