Success and Effective Altruism
Nobody becomes successful in a vacuum. Everyone, everywhere who can claim any level of financial success and freedom, were helped by others, many of whom they have never even met or know.
A businessperson grows their business successfully because they may have dedicated, loyal and hardworking employees. Sure, one can claim that those employees are only being good workers because it is in their own best interest. While that may be true, I hope that it isn’t only financial reasons that drive a person to be good at their job. The sense of satisfaction that comes from a job well done cannot be underestimated. Similarly, if those employees are successful, they are only able to do so because of the education and/or experience they received from someone else.
A cynic might try to define special cases where one person’s success was not in some part dependent on others, but I’d argue they just haven’t dug deep enough.
Does this mean that people who are successful owe the rest of the world for their success? It may sound contradictory, but I don’t believe so.
In a perfect world, everyone would do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. There would be no need for pleases and thank-yous.
Having said that, we all know we don’t live in a perfect world… yet. Being an eternal and unabashed optimist, I do believe a perfect world is possible. But it won’t come about on its own. We must create it.
To that end, wherever we can, we must work to create a more equitable and just world.
The Effective Altruism (EA) movement seeks to create such a world. Followers of the movement seek out projects and charitable organizations that are having the most quantifiable, positive impacts and support them with their time, skills and money. Strict followers of the movement pledge to give away at least 10% of their income to such charitable causes.
In principle, I agree with the EA model. I think people with the means to help others should do so, but not because of some sort of obligation, but because they can. To be fair, not all members of the EA movement feel that helping and giving is an obligation; they give because they see it as an opportunity to do good.
The view in which I diverge from EA is that we should give, first and foremost, to charities that have the largest quantifiable impact. Again, I do not believe this view is held by all EA followers but it does seem to be a key tenet. Their reasoning is that by giving exclusively to causes that have the largest impact, we can address an important issue quickly and efficiently thus freeing us to move to the next largest impact and so on.
In an ideal world, this would be a good formula to follow. Alas, we do not live in an ideal world; besides, in an ideal world, there would not be a need for the EA movement.
There are many organizations trying to do good in the world. If they had unlimited financial resources, they’d be very effective at accomplishing their mission as well.
This may seem counterintuitive, so here’s an example that might make more sense. A person on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder ends up paying more of their income in taxes because they don’t have the means of hiring financial gurus to help them find tax loop holes and tax breaks that would allow them to keep more of their earned income. Someone who already has a lot of money doesn’t have this problem and therefore, has access to more effective means of holding onto more of their money.
Also, people care about different things to different degrees. They might not be moved to donate to foreign NGOs trying to stomp out malaria but be very happy to donate to cancer research in their country. Perhaps they know someone who has fought or is fighting cancer. It doesn’t matter, by giving what they can to the causes that are pushing the needle towards a more perfect world, they are helping improve the situation for everyone. I would rather they give to causes they care about than not give at all.
The issue that is most important to me is animal rights, in particular as those related to farmed animals. Others may disagree, but I believe it is the biggest social justice movement of my time. From the environmental damage it causes, to the health crisis that consumption of animal foods causes and the direct, negative impact to humans, animal agriculture is the largest destructive force on the planet.
In doing my part in creating a more perfect world, I’ve decided to start donating 10% of my net income from every paycheck to charitable causes. Most of them are animal rights related but I donate to other causes that I think are worthy, including those that fall under the blessings of the EA movement.
Here’s a spreadsheet with my income and donations, not to show off but to inspire and encourage others to make regular giving part of their budget. It doesn’t have to be 10% and it doesn’t have to be with every paycheck. But do it regularly, give what is within your means, and share your donations with others to inspire others to follow suit. (There may be a fear that announcing yourself as a giver will open you up to solicited donation requests. Here is an article about Polite Ways to Say ‘No’ to Donation and Fundraising Requests.)
There are also free/easy ways to do good without leaving your house. Then there’s Omaze, where you can do good with the potential of getting something in return.
There is no obligation to do any of this. Do it only because you can.
I’m also including links (in the spreadsheet) to the donation recipients so if people are interested, they can investigate those organizations and donate to them if they feel moved to do so.
One thing I wanted to say about financial success that I couldn’t work into my short essay here, is that I’ve been seeing a lot of seemingly trivial items (like games and virtual art) sold for millions of dollars. I don’t begrudge people spending the fruits of their labor however they see fit. However, it seems to me that sometimes people are spending inordinate amounts of money on these things so they can show the world how much money they have, which I also don’t have a problem with. But, to really show off, I would challenge these big spenders to donate an equal amount of their purchase to a charitable cause of their choice.
