Dylan Matthews just posted a Vox article "If you’re such an effective altruist, how come you’re so rich?" which addresses critics of effective altruism's billionaires.
My TL;DR
- A lot of recent criticism of EA seems to come from the fact that it has a couple of billionaires now as supporters
- These billionaires however are some of the biggest donors to US candidates that would increase taxes on them
- Open support for raising taxes, e.g. Moskovitz tweeted the other day: "I’m for raising taxes and help elect Dems to do it"
- The broader EA community skews heavily left-of-center (typically supportive of higher taxes and social welfare)
- Effective altruism was founded explicitly on voluntary redistribution of income from people in high-income countries to low-income countries (e.g. Giving What We Can) and most of the communities founders give a significant portion of their incomes
- Given that the billionaires do exist, what else would you rather they spend money on?
That's just my TL;DR – feel free to put in your own summaries, comments and critiques below.
It's worth flagging the obvious solution of supporting raising taxes on billionaires while allowing them to donate instead thanks to the charitable tax deduction. (I mention this in the comments to my post on Billionaire Philanthropy, which Dylan Matthews cites and draws upon for the "Given that the billionaires do exist, what else would you rather they spend money on?" argument.)
P.S. Speaking as a New Zealander, I'm pretty confident that most of my compatriots believe that American billionaires should pay more taxes!