Thanks for writing this, Bob. I feel a bit confused about what your argument is. You cite âdefendersâ[1] of billionaire philanthropy as giving two defenses:
Billionaire philanthropy is very small compared to governmental budgets
Billionaires may donate in ways that are more effective than government spending
The first defense you donât seem to address, except to cite some statistics supporting the defense. The second you explicitly state that you havenât argued against:
Iâve talked a lot about the drawbacks of billionaire philanthropy, but I havenât spent any time defending government programs. It could be that billionaire donors are still better because state institutions are even worse.
I canât tell if you are intending to critique (1) and (2) and I am misunderstanding, or if your view is something like âitâs true that billionaire philanthropy plausibly outperforms current government spending, but there is a third thing which outperforms bothâ.
I expect that Scott would object to being labeled a âdefenderâ of billionaire philanthropyâhis post was titled âAgainst against billionaire philanthropyâ, not âPro billionaire philanthropy,â I suspect for exactly this reason. But I will stick with your terminology.
I included these common counterarguments to show that they donât really address the issue. Argument 1 isnât relevant. It does get used all the time, but itâs a whataboutism at best. Argument 2 is a false dilemma. It might be true that billionaire philanthropy is better than government programs (although while Iâve often seen it being asserted, Iâve never actually seen it demonstrated), but even if we grant that it doesnât matter because those two arenât our only options, itâs a false dilemma.
Iâm not sure I understand the first pointâdoesnât (1) straightforwardly imply a lower (relative) importance in an ITN framework?
And re (2): the third option you think we should consider is something like a citizenâs assembly? If so, am I correct in understanding that no evidence that these outperform billionaire philanthropy was presented? (Perhaps you plan to do this in a future post, or something?)
ITN framework? This is post is not a proposal for a cause area, itâs an analysis of whether Billionaire Philanthropists are effective. If someone says âbut the government is biggerâ then that doesnât really change the evaluation. Same for two, we canât assume that billionaire philanthropy is effective if we havenât even compared it to the other options. So Iâm making an inductive claim that, given the demonstrated problems with billionaire philanthropy and given that there are many other options out there, it seems reasonable to assume that something else is actually âthe most good we can doâ.
Ok, so your claim is something like âwhile I havenât rigorously evaluated it, it seems likely that there are ways that the money currently being donated by billionaires could be more effectively (by EA-values) spent?â (But you make no further claims like â...And therefore, improving the way billionaires spend their money is likely to be an intervention that scores well according to traditional EA frameworks like ITN.)
Itâs not about the current spending itâs about the overall system of allocation. Currently our political economy has implemented a system where some people accumulate billions of dollars in private wealth. Iâve seen people in the EA-sphere and beyond defend this system on the basis of effective philanthropy. So I made a post evaluating this claim and found it lacking. My hope is that people will now either stop, or find a new defense for why this is the best we can do (well, I say âhopeâ, but that might be gone by now).
Thanks for writing this, Bob. I feel a bit confused about what your argument is. You cite âdefendersâ[1] of billionaire philanthropy as giving two defenses:
Billionaire philanthropy is very small compared to governmental budgets
Billionaires may donate in ways that are more effective than government spending
The first defense you donât seem to address, except to cite some statistics supporting the defense. The second you explicitly state that you havenât argued against:
I canât tell if you are intending to critique (1) and (2) and I am misunderstanding, or if your view is something like âitâs true that billionaire philanthropy plausibly outperforms current government spending, but there is a third thing which outperforms bothâ.
I expect that Scott would object to being labeled a âdefenderâ of billionaire philanthropyâhis post was titled âAgainst against billionaire philanthropyâ, not âPro billionaire philanthropy,â I suspect for exactly this reason. But I will stick with your terminology.
Hi Ben, thanks for reading
I included these common counterarguments to show that they donât really address the issue.
Argument 1 isnât relevant. It does get used all the time, but itâs a whataboutism at best.
Argument 2 is a false dilemma. It might be true that billionaire philanthropy is better than government programs (although while Iâve often seen it being asserted, Iâve never actually seen it demonstrated), but even if we grant that it doesnât matter because those two arenât our only options, itâs a false dilemma.
Thanks for clarifying, Bob.
Iâm not sure I understand the first pointâdoesnât (1) straightforwardly imply a lower (relative) importance in an ITN framework?
And re (2): the third option you think we should consider is something like a citizenâs assembly? If so, am I correct in understanding that no evidence that these outperform billionaire philanthropy was presented? (Perhaps you plan to do this in a future post, or something?)
ITN framework? This is post is not a proposal for a cause area, itâs an analysis of whether Billionaire Philanthropists are effective. If someone says âbut the government is biggerâ then that doesnât really change the evaluation.
Same for two, we canât assume that billionaire philanthropy is effective if we havenât even compared it to the other options. So Iâm making an inductive claim that, given the demonstrated problems with billionaire philanthropy and given that there are many other options out there, it seems reasonable to assume that something else is actually âthe most good we can doâ.
Ok, so your claim is something like âwhile I havenât rigorously evaluated it, it seems likely that there are ways that the money currently being donated by billionaires could be more effectively (by EA-values) spent?â (But you make no further claims like â...And therefore, improving the way billionaires spend their money is likely to be an intervention that scores well according to traditional EA frameworks like ITN.)
Itâs not about the current spending itâs about the overall system of allocation. Currently our political economy has implemented a system where some people accumulate billions of dollars in private wealth. Iâve seen people in the EA-sphere and beyond defend this system on the basis of effective philanthropy. So I made a post evaluating this claim and found it lacking. My hope is that people will now either stop, or find a new defense for why this is the best we can do (well, I say âhopeâ, but that might be gone by now).