The Left and Effective Altruists Should be Natural Allies

Why can't we all get along?

The difference between my and the internet’s opinion of Effective Altruism (EA) is staggeringly large. It’s a chasm. One that surprised me enormously when I first became aware of it’s existence. If you’re not aware of what Effective Altruism is, it’s a philosophy and movement that uses an evidence based approach to making the world a better place. Effective Altruists look at interventions such as charity, careers, and activism, and ask “Do these actually work?”. Then, they find the interventions that do work the best, and pursue them. Sometimes people add extra conditions to EA that aren’t true (as I will elaborate on later), but here’s the two main pillars of the idea.

1. We have an obligation to help those most in need.

2. When helping, we should seek to use effective interventions.

It sounds pretty sensible - and that’s because it is. Once you realise that you can cure someone’s blindness for 100 dollars, it seems silly to choose to donate that money to an art gallery in London instead. Here’s just a few things Effective Altruism endorses:

1. Providing Malaria nets to affected countries.

2. Ending Factory Farming.

3. Trying to limit the risk of nuclear war.

4. Deworming school children living with parasites.

5. Giving money to people who live in extreme poverty.

You might be surprised to find out then, that EA’s are among the most sneered at people on the internet. Except for probably vegans - but c’mon, who’s more hate-able than those guys? When I first read a book on Effective Altruism, I wondered how I hadn’t heard of it yet. It’s such a no brainer, and so obviously good, that I wasn’t sure what possible reason people could have to oppose it - but oppose it they do.

The group I’ve been most surprised to see pushback from are the left. I found this disappointing, as I lean somewhat left myself. I know a friend of a friend that’s a leftist, and she apparently goes on dates with EA’s specifically to convince them to renounce their allegiance to the cause. Why? You would think we’d be natural allies considering EA’s literally endorse redistributing wealth. How can someone endorse high tax rates, but oppose Effective Altruism? There are only a couple of differences I can think of:

1. EA is voluntary, and taxes are not.

2. EA money is spent on improving the world, and taxes only sometimes do that. Other times they’re spent doing very bad things (Especially things lefties think are bad, like bombs and police gear).

I don’t know, seems like EA is actually better! Wouldn’t it be great if wealth redistribution was voluntary, and we spent it all on healthcare instead of guns? I feel like a hippie typing it out, but c’mon - you guys are supposed to be the hippies!

Of course, when I see people on the left oppose EA, they don’t say that EA is bad because of the reasons above. They have others, but I think they are not nearly strong enough to oppose the philosophy.

Utilitarianism is bad

EA was started by a bunch of Utilitarians, and a lot of EA’s are Utilitarians. People don’t like this, because they think Utilitarianism is evil. This is probably because it endorses a lot of unintuitive ideas, such as it being permissible to murder someone if you can harvest their organs and save 5 more lives. I do think, though, that people often forget all the obviously good things Utilitarianism stresses that other normative theories neglect - such as an obligation to help others.

Still, there’s this weird move I keep seeing people make where they say that because EA “has it’s roots” in Utilitarianism, and Utilitarianism is bad, EA must be bad. This assumes that if something has it’s roots in something bad, it must be bad - but why think that? If the NHS was started by the Nazis, it wouldn’t then mean that looking after sick people is bad. What relevance does the origin of a practice have? Surely, what matters more is the value of the practice itself?

Additionally, you don’t even need to be utilitarian to be an Effective Altruist. There’s just a lot of cross over because Utilitarians tend to be more willing to give up their resources to help others. There are plenty of non-Utilitarian EA’s, because even other normative theories can get behind the idea that we should do something to help others, and we should do so effectively. What’s the alternative? Doing nothing? Doing something ineffectively? How are those better options?

What’s strange is that you’d think leftists would be the least likely to turn their nose up at Utilitarianism. I can see it from a hard right winger. If you think you have something like inalienable rights over your money, I can wrap my head around why you’d think you don’t need to donate any of it to charity. But the left tends to deny that, and prioritises the wellbeing of the group. The arguments the left makes to justify high tax rates usually appeal to all the good the money can do for others, despite the harm it causes rich people. That is, they appeal to the net increase in utility - again, you’d think we’d be friends!

The Movement is problematic

Sometimes appeals are made to specific bad figureheads in the EA movement. For example, Sam Bankman Fried committed what can only be called a cubic fuckton of fraud, allegedly in the name of Effective Altruism. There was also a controversy about an EA group buying a castle. I’m not familiar with that particular incident, so let’s just say for sake of argument that it was indeed a colossal waste of money. What I don’t understand, is to move from “There are some bad effective altruists” to “Effective Altruism is bad” - especially when the left is so vulnerable to that exact charge.

There’s something hilarious about a Marxist implying that Effective Altruism is a flawed and misguided ideology because bad things have been done in it’s name. I don’t know how much you guys can remember from history class, but far-left ideas can sometimes get a bit murdery. Yet, somehow it’s possible to brush aside some of the worst genocides in history as evil people merely appropriating leftist ideas, but it’s not possible to acknowledge that SBF is a twat, and still be an Effective Altruist ourselves. Condemning actions of specific members of the EA movement is absolutely compatible with still endorsing the philosophy of Beneficentrism. To abandon the whole project because some people have done bad things in it’s name feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We should focus on systemic change first

Probably the most serious charge that the left has on EA is that it is, in some way, in bed with capitalism. At the core of EA is that the global rich should donate their money to effective causes. In fact, EA often recommends taking jobs that make as much money as possible in order to provide that money to the world’s poorest. I can understand why someone who’s a communist or socialist would be uneasy with a movement that says “Play the game and get rich!”.

Still, I think what leftists miss is that EA is merely pursuing the most effective action given our circumstances. They endorse making a lot of money, because we live in a capitalist world, and that’s how you get things done today. It might be that we’ll improve the living standards of everyone in the world if there was a Marxist revolution (although I’m doubtful). The good thing about EA is that it’s dynamic, it updates it’s prescriptions based on new information. So, were it the case we had strong reason to think that overthrowing capitalism was actually really good for everyone, and it was an intervention that was somewhat achievable - then that would become the effective altruist thing to do!

The only reason EA doesn’t currently prescribe funneling money into overthrowing capitalism is that we don’t have strong reasons to think it would be a good intervention, and we don’t have strong reasons to think it’s achievable. If the left disagrees, great! It’s exciting that there may be a better way to improve the world - but it’s up to them to convince EA’s that’s the case. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to count on tried and tested methods like providing malaria nets and getting chicken farms to go cage free.

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One way I like to test objections to Effective Altruism, is to imagine how comfortable I’d feel saying them to the face of a child living in extreme poverty. I have money in my pocket that can buy them the resources they desperately need, at a very minor cost to myself. How comfortable would I feel holding onto the money on these grounds?

• “Sorry, giving this to you would be Utilitarian, and Utilitarianism is bad”.

• “Sorry, SBF committed fraud in the US, so I can’t give you this money”.

• “Sorry, I should use this money to try to end capitalism instead”.

I would feel embarrassed to use any of those reasons to say the least, and I have a feeling a lot of leftists would want to rip the money from my hands and give it to them. So, why are they not only not giving money themselves, but actively trying to stop others who are? It feels like it flies in the face of the very values the movement claims to hold. Generosity. Compassion. Selflessness. These are things the Left and EA can agree on! It boggles my mind that they can’t get along.