This question appears to be unpopular—at time of writing it has a karma of −6.
However I’d like to defend/steelman this question.
First, let’s try to understand those who appear not to like this post.
The post makes the claim that inequality is the “the root cause of most of society’s ills”, however it does not provide evidence for this claim.
I’m not going to try to defend this claim.
What I will say is that whether or not the claim is correct, I would like the Effective Altruism community to be able to help with the question raised by the original poster:
What types of charity will be the most effective for creating a more equal society?
EA ways of thinking *should* be a tool to enable people to answer practical ethical questions such as this, even if the link between a more equal society and all of society’s ills is not clear.
For example, some may believe that equality is an intrinsic good.
So, having made the case that this community should be more supportive of this question, here are some brief thoughts.
Society can be made more equal by
(a) raising the wealth/standards for those on the bottom rung
(b) redistributing from the richest to the poorest
Also, most EA thinking tends to either focus on direct impacts work, which is typically required to have good cost-effectiveness, or hits-based work, which is required to have a potentially huge impact.
When helping the poor, the EA community tends to take a global perspective, because people in the developing world are typically much poorer and easier to help than those in the developed world.
A good choice of charity for a redistribution charity with a direct impact is GiveDirectly, which is recommended by GiveWell
For a more hits based approach, some have given consideration to Tax. I have seen a write-up on the EA Forum about this, however I have not reviewed it, and I neither endorse nor disavow it.
As for raising the wealth of the poorest people without simply giving people money, this has turned out to be surprisingly difficult. For example, microcredit does not appear to be particularly effective at this.
Apologies that this response is too brief to do justice to this complex question.
Thank you to Maksim for engaging with the EA community, and I hope you find the responses to your question useful.
This question appears to be unpopular—at time of writing it has a karma of −6.
However I’d like to defend/steelman this question.
First, let’s try to understand those who appear not to like this post.
The post makes the claim that inequality is the “the root cause of most of society’s ills”, however it does not provide evidence for this claim.
I’m not going to try to defend this claim.
What I will say is that whether or not the claim is correct, I would like the Effective Altruism community to be able to help with the question raised by the original poster:
What types of charity will be the most effective for creating a more equal society?
EA ways of thinking *should* be a tool to enable people to answer practical ethical questions such as this, even if the link between a more equal society and all of society’s ills is not clear.
For example, some may believe that equality is an intrinsic good.
So, having made the case that this community should be more supportive of this question, here are some brief thoughts.
Society can be made more equal by
(a) raising the wealth/standards for those on the bottom rung
(b) redistributing from the richest to the poorest
Also, most EA thinking tends to either focus on direct impacts work, which is typically required to have good cost-effectiveness, or hits-based work, which is required to have a potentially huge impact.
When helping the poor, the EA community tends to take a global perspective, because people in the developing world are typically much poorer and easier to help than those in the developed world.
A good choice of charity for a redistribution charity with a direct impact is GiveDirectly, which is recommended by GiveWell
For a more hits based approach, some have given consideration to Tax. I have seen a write-up on the EA Forum about this, however I have not reviewed it, and I neither endorse nor disavow it.
As for raising the wealth of the poorest people without simply giving people money, this has turned out to be surprisingly difficult. For example, microcredit does not appear to be particularly effective at this.
Apologies that this response is too brief to do justice to this complex question.
Thank you to Maksim for engaging with the EA community, and I hope you find the responses to your question useful.