I think EAs should spend more time engaging with how to more evenly distribute power between different agents, but I think the best thinking on this is in the tradition of internationalist libertarian socialism, not in the mainstream American left.
I don’t think EAs should adopt the idea popular amongst American liberals, that giving more money to the US government, which is probably the world’s most powerful agent with a strong history of interfering with democracy in other countries, and was until recently run by Donald Trump, is an improvement on the status quo of billionaires having more power than they ideally should.
I’ll do a post on “what EA can learn from libertarian socialism” at some point.
EDIT: I do think there’s a case to be made that “evenly distributing power to reduce risks from reckless profit maximisation and authoritarianism” isn’t neglected, and is why EA doesn’t have much writing on it.
I think EAs should spend more time engaging with how to more evenly distribute power between different agents, but I think the best thinking on this is in the tradition of internationalist libertarian socialism, not in the mainstream American left.
I don’t think EAs should adopt the idea popular amongst American liberals, that giving more money to the US government, which is probably the world’s most powerful agent with a strong history of interfering with democracy in other countries, and was until recently run by Donald Trump, is an improvement on the status quo of billionaires having more power than they ideally should.
I’ll do a post on “what EA can learn from libertarian socialism” at some point.
EDIT: I do think there’s a case to be made that “evenly distributing power to reduce risks from reckless profit maximisation and authoritarianism” isn’t neglected, and is why EA doesn’t have much writing on it.