Great post! I think this is an issue worth a lot of exploration. My sense though—both from reacting to your post and from my own reflection—is that there is probably a pretty low ceiling in terms of how much is possible here. I’ll speak from my own experience as both a fan of EA and as a leftist.
1. It seems to me that EA, right now, has two areas of congregation (very broadly speaking): university/city groups and professional networking circles. So if you’re involved in EA you’re probably one of the following: a student, someone with a pretty niche expertise, or someone in between. You might have a graduate degree from a top university, and you might be a serious contender for some pretty “big” jobs at important institutions. Pretty much, you (might be, obviously this is a generalization) a member of the “professional-managerial class” (PMC). This class status—which is distinct from working-class and capital owner—is, I think, always what EA will be and, therefore, will always appear (understandably) as “elitist” to leftists who are sensitive to working-class politics. To many leftists, EA will always appear like a niche intellectual exercise that is being done by members of the PMC, and will never be truly available to members of the working-class, who leftists view as the true source of political power.
2. Smaller point, but I would distinguish between progressives (say, like Elizabeth Warren or Ezra Klein) and leftists (like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Bruenig). These two groups have similarities but are different in one of the most important ways: their views on capitalism. The former is more likely, it seems, to be interested in EA (especially people like Klein who of course already likes EA), but the latter will never be fully into EA because EA, generally speaking, does not make fundamental critiques of global capitalism. You can work on things like diversity, equity, and inclusion, but a failure to criticize capital will lead to a dead-end in how many people on the left are interested because that’s what the left is.
So, I guess my point is that although I think this is important, unless you can make EA look more like a working-class movement (or at least less like a movement created by and ran by the PMC) then there will never be much overlap between leftists and EAs.
As both an EA and a leftist myself, this is of course very troubling to me if true!
Speaking descriptively, are most active leftists members of the working class rather than the PMC? My impression is that while many working-class people have implicitly leftist views on economics, the demographics that leftists predominantly draw from for activism is the highly educated PMC class, similar to EA.
This impression can of course be wrong due to selection bias of who I end up talking with, so I’d personally find it valuable to correct for this bias!
Good point! My intuition is that it’s probably true that self-identified leftists are often indeed members of the PMC. But this could be in part because of a similar selection bias on my part.
I think the difference is, though, that left politics often draws power from the working-class even if the working-class of course contains people of very diverse political viewpoints. Like not everyone striking in a labor union necessarily an identified socialist, but the political act they’re engaging in is one arguably.
Whereas with EA, it is both the case that members of the community and where power is locating in the community is mostly the PMC (with exceptions). Like, descriptively most EAs are well-educated and so on, and most EA solutions are ones that would derive from well-educated people.
I feel EA would be very interested in a socialist running a cost-benefit analysis of the global proletariat revolution, the 20th century has presumably given us enough data to make it less speculative than a lot of things EAs are concerned about.
The thing that dem socs in the us want, a socialist economy and government, hasn’t really happened in a rich country. The closest example would be Sweden in the 70s. I don’t think there’s much value in comparing the results of left wing revolutions in extremely poor and war ravaged countries with what might happen if dem socs like bernie sanders were to be able to enact their agendas in rich countries. The most economically left wing governments and societies in the rich world, i.e. Scandinavia, are some of the best places to live based on a whole host of metrics.
I think it’s important to be clear that Scandinavian Social Democracy is not a socialist economy or a socialist government—I’m a big fan of the Nordic countries and think they’d be great to emulate, but (like all countries) Sweden is somewhere in between “capitalism” and “socialism”, using taxation and a strong welfare state to ensure that the benefits of capital are widely distributed without total redistribution. Based on the 20th century, I’m pretty confident that the optimal system of government has both free markets and government control.
I see the Capitalist/Socialist false dichotomy a a relic of the Cold War, with neither side able to admit that the other had a point. Total laisse fare Capitalism is pretty unpleasant for the people on the bottom, but it’s the height of hubris to think the government can centrally plan the entire economy—and as soon as the Chinese stopped trying, it turned out pretty well for them!
Possibly the solution should be to not try to integrate everything you are interested in.
By analogy, both sex and cheese cake are god, but it is not troubling that for most people there isn’t much overlap between sex and cheese cake. EA isn’t trying to be a political movement, it is trying to be something else, and I don’t think this is a problem.
I think this is more or less correct. EA is not destined to be compatible with everything that we care about, and I think we should be thinking hard about what EA is capable of being and that the project of bringing in leftists is way more difficult than a few messaging tweaks. Those tweaks might bring in a few left-liberals, but once many leftists really see EA—i.e. as more than just a “you should donate more effectively” project—they will not be super interested, I think.
Great post! I think this is an issue worth a lot of exploration. My sense though—both from reacting to your post and from my own reflection—is that there is probably a pretty low ceiling in terms of how much is possible here. I’ll speak from my own experience as both a fan of EA and as a leftist.
1. It seems to me that EA, right now, has two areas of congregation (very broadly speaking): university/city groups and professional networking circles. So if you’re involved in EA you’re probably one of the following: a student, someone with a pretty niche expertise, or someone in between. You might have a graduate degree from a top university, and you might be a serious contender for some pretty “big” jobs at important institutions. Pretty much, you (might be, obviously this is a generalization) a member of the “professional-managerial class” (PMC). This class status—which is distinct from working-class and capital owner—is, I think, always what EA will be and, therefore, will always appear (understandably) as “elitist” to leftists who are sensitive to working-class politics. To many leftists, EA will always appear like a niche intellectual exercise that is being done by members of the PMC, and will never be truly available to members of the working-class, who leftists view as the true source of political power.
2. Smaller point, but I would distinguish between progressives (say, like Elizabeth Warren or Ezra Klein) and leftists (like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Bruenig). These two groups have similarities but are different in one of the most important ways: their views on capitalism. The former is more likely, it seems, to be interested in EA (especially people like Klein who of course already likes EA), but the latter will never be fully into EA because EA, generally speaking, does not make fundamental critiques of global capitalism. You can work on things like diversity, equity, and inclusion, but a failure to criticize capital will lead to a dead-end in how many people on the left are interested because that’s what the left is.
So, I guess my point is that although I think this is important, unless you can make EA look more like a working-class movement (or at least less like a movement created by and ran by the PMC) then there will never be much overlap between leftists and EAs.
As both an EA and a leftist myself, this is of course very troubling to me if true!
Speaking descriptively, are most active leftists members of the working class rather than the PMC? My impression is that while many working-class people have implicitly leftist views on economics, the demographics that leftists predominantly draw from for activism is the highly educated PMC class, similar to EA.
This impression can of course be wrong due to selection bias of who I end up talking with, so I’d personally find it valuable to correct for this bias!
Good point! My intuition is that it’s probably true that self-identified leftists are often indeed members of the PMC. But this could be in part because of a similar selection bias on my part.
I think the difference is, though, that left politics often draws power from the working-class even if the working-class of course contains people of very diverse political viewpoints. Like not everyone striking in a labor union necessarily an identified socialist, but the political act they’re engaging in is one arguably.
Whereas with EA, it is both the case that members of the community and where power is locating in the community is mostly the PMC (with exceptions). Like, descriptively most EAs are well-educated and so on, and most EA solutions are ones that would derive from well-educated people.
I feel EA would be very interested in a socialist running a cost-benefit analysis of the global proletariat revolution, the 20th century has presumably given us enough data to make it less speculative than a lot of things EAs are concerned about.
The thing that dem socs in the us want, a socialist economy and government, hasn’t really happened in a rich country. The closest example would be Sweden in the 70s. I don’t think there’s much value in comparing the results of left wing revolutions in extremely poor and war ravaged countries with what might happen if dem socs like bernie sanders were to be able to enact their agendas in rich countries. The most economically left wing governments and societies in the rich world, i.e. Scandinavia, are some of the best places to live based on a whole host of metrics.
I think it’s important to be clear that Scandinavian Social Democracy is not a socialist economy or a socialist government—I’m a big fan of the Nordic countries and think they’d be great to emulate, but (like all countries) Sweden is somewhere in between “capitalism” and “socialism”, using taxation and a strong welfare state to ensure that the benefits of capital are widely distributed without total redistribution. Based on the 20th century, I’m pretty confident that the optimal system of government has both free markets and government control.
I see the Capitalist/Socialist false dichotomy a a relic of the Cold War, with neither side able to admit that the other had a point. Total laisse fare Capitalism is pretty unpleasant for the people on the bottom, but it’s the height of hubris to think the government can centrally plan the entire economy—and as soon as the Chinese stopped trying, it turned out pretty well for them!
Possibly the solution should be to not try to integrate everything you are interested in.
By analogy, both sex and cheese cake are god, but it is not troubling that for most people there isn’t much overlap between sex and cheese cake. EA isn’t trying to be a political movement, it is trying to be something else, and I don’t think this is a problem.
I think this is more or less correct. EA is not destined to be compatible with everything that we care about, and I think we should be thinking hard about what EA is capable of being and that the project of bringing in leftists is way more difficult than a few messaging tweaks. Those tweaks might bring in a few left-liberals, but once many leftists really see EA—i.e. as more than just a “you should donate more effectively” project—they will not be super interested, I think.