The way billionaires donate to charity operates in a whole other world than how we do though. It is not really “charity” in a genuine or fair sense at all. Billionaires donate specifically because there are laws in place that relieve huge amounts of taxes for people who donate large amounts to charity. In theory it’s supposed to work 1-to-1, but it doesn’t, they end up having to pay way less money out than they’d typically have to. Also, they set up their own fake charities so when they “donate” they aren’t really, they’re funneling it right back into their pockets.

In essence, this sort of charity we say is opposed to change is opposed because it quite simply isn’t charity. It’s a way for the wealthy to sneakily get even wealthier, while simply calling it charity. Real charity, the contribution to real individuals who need help, and organizations that are truly set on helping others, is not at all opposed to systemic change.

Yeah, personally, I'm not sure what I would do about billionaires. Praising them definitely rubs me the wrong way and helps entrench systemic issues. But sometimes it's worth dealing with the devil for their power.

My guess is that Singer knows he’d alienate these billionaires if he came off as too socialist. Given his pessimism about systemic political change, he probably sees the choice as between:

(A) Billionaires donate large sums of money to aid organizations to help worst off + No systemic political change

Vs

(B) Billionaires don’t donate their money + No systemic political change.

Perhaps his pessimism is unwarranted and he should reject both (A) and (B) as the only options. But until he’s convinced of another option, (A) is obviously the better choice, and it’s the choice that Singer is making, by not being too critical of billionaires.

How do people like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates lobby against those things?

The problem with a statement like . . .you legitimize systemic inequalities, is how can you measure that result. Even if you could, If you want change you need to justify it within a framework that is congruent with reality, in order to create a theory that will resonate with people and change their mind. This means you must deal with the reality that some billionaires seem to legitimately do things for purely philanthropic reasons. However, that truth should be understood against the role of billionaires inside a system that results in deep and unfair inequalities. After all there are perhaps reasons why concentration of wealth in hands of a coordinated group be it a person Corp or government could potentially be beneficial, but the likelihood that they will use it for good is the critical factor. So that some do good proves nothing, unless we think random billionaires are going to use a given sum for a more beneficial purpose than the government (spoilers they won't).

If one were to make this criticism, rather than saying that Singer's philosophy is the problem, I would say that his problem is poor judgment in who he endorses. These are completely separable things.

We should also note that a lot of the "charity" is really just power imposing its will. Gates spent a lot for "education" in Washington state, but it was to install his version of school choice. It counts as charity, but it's really just cramming a rich guy's vision down everyone else's throat. u/SalmonApplecream this is related to your question below.

Well said.

I think if I were Singer one thing I would be concerned about would be politicizing my philosophy too much. So if he solidly aligns too much with <obviously left-wing party social policy plank> he stands to alienate half or more than half of his readers. From his point of view, it may be better to only advocate for voluntary of your own free will charity and hope that people get the hint on the systemic change side of things. Also, considering this stuff came up in the 70s, there's probably a bit of calculation going on regarding that political climate. (Thatcher and Reagan were just around the corner so maybe that relates)

>because he puts his money where his mouth is

In what way? Really don't know this part about him.

That never made me uncomfortable...the beastiality comments did.

Exactly.

But it is also easy to "put your money where your mouth is" when you have said job.

X-risk analysis and prevention is the biggest cause area in effective altruism other than global health. How anyone could claim that ea is too quick to rush to the immediate aid of people is beyond me when they’re actually far too quick to rush to the aid of people who do not yet exist.

Sure! I think another criticism that's really good emerges when one looks at how corrupt lots of poverty-stricken countries are; how much money donated is actually being pocketed by dictators and bureaucrats? And one could argue that even the money that reaches it's goal just enables the corrupt machine to keep chugging on...

But ya like you said, it's unfortunate the article went way too far and ended up being a parody of much better criticisms.

Singer doesn't advocate for giving to charity because he thinks it'll miraculously solve poverty--he advocates for it because it simply makes the world a better place. If you lived in a hypothetical world where you knew that you couldn't personally accomplish any political changes, and you saw a child drowning in a nearby lake, would you jump in and rescue them, or would you continue walking because saving the kid wouldn't solve any of the systemic problems of our economic system?

The question of whether to spend effort on getting people to donate to charity vs getting people to push for policy changes isn't so easy to answer when you factor in likelihood of success. Political change is quite difficult for any person to accomplish--there's no shortage of left-wing academic figures who got a lot of attention advocating for change but had little impact overall. In contrast, Singer has been extremely successful at getting a lot of people to donate to charity. What's better: A high probability of convincing 1,000 people to donate and save 10,000 lives, or an unknown but probably very low probability of convincing the entire US to reform its political system? Do you save the drowning children in front of you or do you gamble on a tiny chance of a vastly higher payoff?

(Plus, you can multitask by donating to charity and also voting for good politicians or policies. Singer votes, and isn't silent about who he votes for.)

I don’t think anyone knows which is more likely to work at a global system level. But it is demonstrably easier for a single individual to dramatically change the life of another individual through charity (I have done it several times). For me to achieve the same through politics is incredibly diffuse and difficult to prove, especially if I eschew electoral politics as many Jacobin writers would probably suggest.

Obviously I’m happy that some people work on behalf of the poor through politics, and I vote for them. But I could spend my whole life without accruing any evidence whatsoever that I had actually improved anyone’s life. It’s almost a faith based activity, whereas the fruits of my charitable work are obvious,

The other issue is that in politics, the harder you work, the harder your opponents are motivated to work. In charity there are seldom opponents. Hardly ever is there a person who makes it their life goal to re-impoverish people.

He literally does not say it cannot be changed. He just says that random individuals can't do very much to change it.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous if we take it as improve on rather than just change. It’s always possible to change just not necessarily for the better. There’s certainly lots to be improved in capitalism but whether it can be improved on is yet to be demonstrated. It’s certainly possible but the writer is far clearer on Singer’s faults than any alternative.

Charity isn't about "solving" poverty. It is about doing what you can to help lessen the suffering of others.

Changing our economic system is obviously possible. We can become more authoritarian and less capitalistic. But we have never been able to create a non oppressive economic system. Creating such a system through democracy without having your movement co-opted by dictators may very well be unrealistic.

I’m curious what your pluralistic alternative to capitalism. I’m all for reforming and controlling capitalism through social measures - but the article certainly seemed to me to be suggesting a complete replacement. And indeed rather sneering at Singer. Personally I think the third way is to actual out in the effort to convince , persuade, and work through the democratic system - if you have actually worked out what can and needs to be changed.

>Not really, it tends to assume false consciousness and that people would already agree if they weren't being mislead.

Indeed. Which I think is covered in “they are too stupid …. brainwashed”. I didn’t say the assumption was always necessarily wrong ( though I certainly don’t trust ideologues Of any flavour on the subject).

>Charity also is not counter to ideological consistency aimed at systemic change - I donate to vegan charity Viva, for example.

No indeed the two are not mutually exclusive , one can do what you can on a micro(?) level while working for wider macro change. My problem is while I can see a change in our eating habits and people being persuaded of that over time , it’s far harder to come up with an alternative to “capitalism” that would work better overall and be accepted to populations.

Bear in mind that I absolutely agree with the social limitation of capitalism. But the article seems to be promoting replacement not reform.

That would appear to beg the question. The author thinks individual actions that work within the system are insignificant and the system needs changing as a whole. Well that’s easy to say.

And since in practice there are only the actions of individuals working separately or together _ what do they do to change the whole system and what do they propose to replace it with?

It’s like people protesting to “stop racism!” - well yeh I agree …. and now how do we do actually precisely and practically do that step by step since just saying stop probably isn’t going to do it.

Of the individual. It’s a big difference. Edit: thought you said agree, not disagree

Even more ridiculous: Charity has existed for literally thousands of years and has yet to solve poverty. Yet people hold on to the notion that this will eventually work.

When? Are we half way done with the project of eradicating poverty? Or is it just another 2000 years perhaps?

Disagree, I think in the UK we easily have sufficient public support for veganism, and at absolute minimum for welfare legislation that would have the inevitable effect of drastically reducing then likely eliminating meat consumption, it's the actions and practical understanding that haven't caught up. It's an edgelord minority willing to look at animal ag. and go 'this is fine', very few think or want to say that.

I'm here because of the content that people like you and I create. Without that content, there is no value. Yes, it is owned by concentrations of wealth.

This technology is not going away. It will evolve. I don't see a choice but to talk about how we can move it in positive directions. I see no harm in proposing practical solutions and letting them get ripped apart, until some good proposals come up that lots of people are willing to get behind.

>Technology is a force multiplier, true, but it works for all sides and it's owned by the wealthy. I'm skeptical of it.

you should be, by definition a force multiplier helps those with the most influence.

who will have greater reach in a grassroots movement? you or Bezos?

it most certainly did help with trump, brexit, iraq, attempting to make the West want war with China and us voting to dismantle our own nations (look at the West, funny how we are all on a similiar trajectory isnt it?)

Much of the UK old Labour left backed Brexit and always had, it was seen as aiming at systemic change.

Well, I'd be very interested to hear about this "mountain of evidence" that we're living in an era of extreme temporary abundance". What kind of "evidence" could even show that?

That's not really accurate to history, though, superstition never went away, nor did the people calling it out as such, nor is it dependent on education or the 'general population' - eg. some more highly educated people might be more rather than less inclined to defend religion when lower class people were just sick of institutional religious exploitation.

I'm not sure why OP is getting downvoted for making such an uncontroversial point.

Sure, there are aspects of capitalism that are undesirable. But let's not forget that capitalism has also done far more to solve poverty than it has to create it.

If we want to come up with solutions, we at least need to be honest about the problem we're trying to solve.

Yeah, life was a lot better a few hundred years ago when all this stupid shit wasn't around and people could just peacefully go about dying from simple dental infections. Those were the days my friend