The overall point is, if donors can coordinate, as they obviously can in the real world, then the optimal provisioning of goods theorem no longer holds.
I don’t find this to be obvious. In my understanding, coordination/collusion can be limited by keeping donations anonymous. (See the first two paragraphs on page 16 in the paper for an example.)
In my understanding, coordination/collusion can be limited by keeping donations anonymous.
It’s not hard for an individual to prove that they donated by other means, e.g. screenshots and bank statements.
(See the first two paragraphs on page 16 in the paper for an example.)
Right after that, the authors say:
There is a broader point here. If perfect harmonization of interests is possible, Capitalism leads to optimal outcomes. LR is intended to overcome such lack of harmonization and falls prey to manipulation when it wrongly assumes harmonization is difficult
With donations it is particularly easy to harmonize interests: if I’m planning to allocate 2 votes to MIRI and you’re planning to allocate 2 votes to AMF, we can instead have each of us allocate 1 vote each to MIRI and AMF and we both benefit. Yes, we have to build trust that neither of us would defect by actually putting both of our votes to our preferred charity; but this seems doable in practice: even in the hardest case of vote trading (where there are laws attempting to enforce anonymity and inability to prove your vote) there seems to have been some success.
I don’t find this to be obvious. In my understanding, coordination/collusion can be limited by keeping donations anonymous. (See the first two paragraphs on page 16 in the paper for an example.)
It’s not hard for an individual to prove that they donated by other means, e.g. screenshots and bank statements.
Right after that, the authors say:
With donations it is particularly easy to harmonize interests: if I’m planning to allocate 2 votes to MIRI and you’re planning to allocate 2 votes to AMF, we can instead have each of us allocate 1 vote each to MIRI and AMF and we both benefit. Yes, we have to build trust that neither of us would defect by actually putting both of our votes to our preferred charity; but this seems doable in practice: even in the hardest case of vote trading (where there are laws attempting to enforce anonymity and inability to prove your vote) there seems to have been some success.