I think it’s more nuanced than just “the EA movement neglects systemic change”, since even as far back as 2015 Rob Wiblin at 80K could list all these systemic change initiatives:
Here are some people who identify as effective altruists working on systemic change:
Most recent Open Philanthropy research and grants, on immigration reform, criminal justice reform, macroeconomics, and international development, are clearly focussed on huge structural changes of various kinds.
The OpenBorders.info website collates research on and promotes the option of dramatic increases in migration from poor to rich countries.
A new startup called EA Policy, recommended for financial support by my colleagues at EA Ventures, is testing the impact of making submissions to open policy forums held by the US Government during this summer.
Our colleagues at the Global Priorities Project research what should be the most important reform priorities for governments, and how they can improve cost-benefit and decision-making processes.
One of GiveWell’s main goals from the beginning, perhaps it’s primary goal, has been to change the cultural norms within the nonprofit sector, and the standards by which they are judged by donors. They wanted to make it necessary for charities to be transparent with donors about their successes and failures, and run projects that actually helped recipients. They have already significantly changed the conversation around charitable giving.
Giving What We Can representatives have met with people in the UK government about options for improving aid effectiveness. One of its first and most popular content page debunks myths people cite when opposing development aid. One of the first things I wrote when employed by Giving What We Can was on the appropriate use of discounts rates by governments delivering health services. Until recently one Giving What We Can member, who we know well, was working at the UK’s aid agency DfID.
Some 80,000 Hours alumni, most of whom unfortunately would rather remain anonymous, are going into politics, think-tanks, setting up a labour mobility organisations or businesses that facilitate remittance flows to the developing world.
Several organisations focussed on existential risk (FHI, CSER and FLI jump to mind) take a big interest in government policies, especially those around the regulation of new technologies, or institutions that can improve inter-state cooperation and prevent conflict.
80,000 Hours alumni and effective altruist charities work on or donate to lobbying efforts to improve animal welfare regulation, such as Humane Society US-FARM. Other activists are working for dramatic society-wide changes in how society views the moral importance of non-human animals.
Rob’s guesses at how this perception that EA neglects systemic change might’ve formed:
‘earning to give’ was one of our most media friendly and viral ideas, and has dominated coverage of 80,000 Hours and effective altruism among the general public, to our growing consternation. Earning to give is usually perceived as anti-systemic change. In fact, someone who ‘earned to give’ in order to pay the salary of someone else working for systemic change is working for systemic change themselves. In that sense ‘earning to give’ is simply neutral on the systemic vs non-systemic change issue. Communist revolutionary Friedrich Engels is a classic example of this approach, though my guess is he personally did more harm than good. I would also argue though that creating a social expectation that to be decent people, the rich should give away a large fraction of their wealth to others, is itself a form of systemic change.
Effective altruists are usually not radicals or revolutionaries, as is apparent from my list above. My attitude, looking at history, is that sudden dramatic changes in society usually lead to worse outcomes than gradual evolutionary improvements. I am keen to tinker with government or economic systems to make them work better, but would only rarely want to throw them out and rebuild from scratch. I personally favour maintaining and improving mostly market-driven economies, though some of my friends and colleagues hope we can one day do much better. Regardless, this temperament for ‘crossing the river by feeling the stones’ is widespread among effective altruists, and in my view that’s a great thing that can help us avoid the mistakes of extremists through history. The system could be a lot better, but one only need look at history to see that it could also be much worse. However, even this remains only an empirically founded belief – if I find evidence that revolutionary change has been better than I thought, I will reconsider working for revolutionary changes.
Effective altruists prefer to pursue systemic changes that are more likely to be achieved, all else equal. Sometimes we view existing attempts at systemic change as more symbolic or idealistic than realistic, and so push back against them. For example I wrote a post years ago about why it’s not a good use of time to work on US gun control. Of course this is nothing to do with systemic change specifically: we frequently also push back against non-systemic approaches that we don’t expect to help others very much. And I try to apply my pragmatism to the systemic changes that in my heart I would love to love: enthusiastic as I am about opening borders, it may be an impossible ask in the current political climate.
We have been taking on the enormous problem of ‘how to help others do the most good’ and had to start somewhere. The natural place for us, GiveWell and other research groups to ‘cut our teeth’ was by looking at the cause areas and approaches where the empirical evidence was strongest, such as the health improvement from anti-malarial bednets, or determining in which careers people could best ‘earn to give’. Having learned from that research experience we are in a better position to evaluate approaches to systemic change, which are usually less transparent or experimental, and compare them to non-systemic options. This is very clear from the case of the Open Philanthropy, which is branching out from GiveWell and is more open to high-risk and ‘unproven’ approaches like political advocacy than GiveWell itself.
This is a 10+ year old snapshot of the EA movement’s efforts w.r.t. systemic change. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s been much more since, e.g. some ACX grantees, some funders’ funds, etc. I do think there’s something to the critique, but I’d like to understand it better.
Hello Mo, “I do think there’s something to the critique, but I’d like to understand it better.” is actually the sentiment that led me to write the post.
I believe the proponents of systematic change critique of EA usually undervalue tractability and overestimate the chance of success for radical interventions. I do disagree with most pro-systemic change critiques of EA. I think when people talk about systemic change, they usually don’t clearly define what it is (and isn’t), as well as which systemic change interventions are above EAs’ bar, and why that’s the case. Usually, when people make the case for systemic change, it’s quite frequently (i) anti-capitalist, radical policy advocacy, (ii) anti-authoritarianism interventions or (iii) a case for fundamental changes to the national/global systems, and a case against gradual, marginal improvements
I don’t agree with the directions of these critiques, but I do directionally agree with what they criticize.
The somewhat classical EA response of “We support lead paint bans, anti-cruently laws as well as things like YIMBY advocacy” is somewhat insufficient. As within global health and development, delivery interventions are clearly majority/most of the portfolio. At the same time, policy interventions also tend to focus on fairly “apolitical” issues such as lead paint. There are examples, but they are obviously underrepresented in the GH portfolio, and I don’t think there is a good articulation of why they are appropriately represented.
The most concrete gap in EAs’ portfolio where the “systemic change” critique is powerful, in my opinion is health systems strengthening broadly construed.
For a movement that aims to tackle global inequalities and urgent global issues, there is a curious lack of interest, funding and talent working on improving health systems. For various questions and advocacy agendas such as “How can LMIC governments fund healthcare systems after the aid cuts?”, “How to improve the procurement of/access to affordable generic medicines?”, “How to expand PHC in countries with at least some financial/technical infrastructure” are all questions where the EA ecosystem unfortunately don’t have much to offer (unless you are an EA funder looking to commission research). And contrary to anti-capitalist advocacy or radical political reform, these questions and agendas are somewhat tractable work on, and at least worth exploring in my opinion.
I think it’s more nuanced than just “the EA movement neglects systemic change”, since even as far back as 2015 Rob Wiblin at 80K could list all these systemic change initiatives:
Rob’s guesses at how this perception that EA neglects systemic change might’ve formed:
This is a 10+ year old snapshot of the EA movement’s efforts w.r.t. systemic change. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s been much more since, e.g. some ACX grantees, some funders’ funds, etc. I do think there’s something to the critique, but I’d like to understand it better.
Hello Mo, “I do think there’s something to the critique, but I’d like to understand it better.” is actually the sentiment that led me to write the post.
I believe the proponents of systematic change critique of EA usually undervalue tractability and overestimate the chance of success for radical interventions. I do disagree with most pro-systemic change critiques of EA. I think when people talk about systemic change, they usually don’t clearly define what it is (and isn’t), as well as which systemic change interventions are above EAs’ bar, and why that’s the case. Usually, when people make the case for systemic change, it’s quite frequently (i) anti-capitalist, radical policy advocacy, (ii) anti-authoritarianism interventions or (iii) a case for fundamental changes to the national/global systems, and a case against gradual, marginal improvements
I don’t agree with the directions of these critiques, but I do directionally agree with what they criticize.
The somewhat classical EA response of “We support lead paint bans, anti-cruently laws as well as things like YIMBY advocacy” is somewhat insufficient. As within global health and development, delivery interventions are clearly majority/most of the portfolio. At the same time, policy interventions also tend to focus on fairly “apolitical” issues such as lead paint. There are examples, but they are obviously underrepresented in the GH portfolio, and I don’t think there is a good articulation of why they are appropriately represented.
The most concrete gap in EAs’ portfolio where the “systemic change” critique is powerful, in my opinion is health systems strengthening broadly construed.
For a movement that aims to tackle global inequalities and urgent global issues, there is a curious lack of interest, funding and talent working on improving health systems. For various questions and advocacy agendas such as “How can LMIC governments fund healthcare systems after the aid cuts?”, “How to improve the procurement of/access to affordable generic medicines?”, “How to expand PHC in countries with at least some financial/technical infrastructure” are all questions where the EA ecosystem unfortunately don’t have much to offer (unless you are an EA funder looking to commission research). And contrary to anti-capitalist advocacy or radical political reform, these questions and agendas are somewhat tractable work on, and at least worth exploring in my opinion.